BOTA BY NIGHT : EVIAN CHRIST - TORUS

"Lord of the Trance"

Evian Christ (b. Joshua Leary) is an Ellesmere Port-based musician, producer and music programmer signed to Warp. Initially finding recognition for his production contributions to Billboard-topping albums by Kanye West and Travis Scott, and subsequently as the founder of the enduringly influential TranceParty event series, Christ’s recent years have seen him lead an idiosyncratic range of projects that enquire into the legacy of Trance in contemporary cultural life. Revanchist (2023), Christ’s imminently-released debut album, explores the genre’s latent potential to evoke, beyond Euphoria, the fullest feeling of the Sublime.

Launched in 2022 with a headline performance at Primavera’s 2400 capacity L’Auditori, Revanchist: Live is an expanded A/V presentation of the album's predominant musical and visual themes. Designed in collaboration with lighting designer Emmanuel Biard, the project is the result of a four year R&D process culminating in the Longinus array — a bespoke, heat compressed 12m fresnel screen comprising twenty-four high power LED projectors with a custom mounting system and optical grade bounce mirrors. The lighting effect produced is breathtaking, and simply must be seen to be believed. 

Strobe Warning: in order to evoke, beyond Euphoria, the fullest feeling of the Sublime, Evian Christ’s performance — as per the artists unconditional technical specification — will be supported by upwards of 15kw of unrelenting xenon strobe lighting and arena-grade smoke machines. As such, this show may not be safe for people with photosensitive epilepsy.

TORUS

Torus is an alias of Joeri Woudstra, a multidisciplinary artist based in The Hague. Since debuting in 2012, the RMBA Tokyo graduate has refined his artistry through impressive and varied roles such as soundtracking Telfar’s Ugg collaboration, presenting a piece with Kate Cooper in the New Museum in New York and creating an installation for documenta 14 on echoes of pop culture co-produced with Malibu. His most recent A/V project ‘These Cars Do Not Exist’ is a 24:24 video piece in collaboration with Mark Prendergast consisting of looping choir samples and scattered midi sequences is exhibited in both art and club contexts such Institut fuer Zukunft online art platform Balance Festival, and Fiber, Amsterdam.

In the club, Torus pushes dance music to the very edge of itself. Where his recent output has been distinctly melancholic and ambient, his Djing renders a headier, maximalist approach. Cleanly dissecting scenes and reconstructing them into reimagined contexts to radically alter their social function. His technical approach offers a framework in which to explore the emotional and personal aspects of sound intuitively.