Ellesmere's Port's uncompromising prodigal son Evian Christ returns with his eagerly-anticipated first release for Warp: "Ultra" – a tsunami of demolished trance euphoria, equal parts devastating and sublime.
Christ's singular production approach sees once-familiar tropes of golden-era euphoric trance and the overwhelming emotional power of mid 00s ambient twisted and reinvented into endlessly-unfolding arcs of textural beauty, collapsing over the listener like the unbreachable wave depicted in "Ultra's" accompanying video. Christ obliterates both convention and nostalgia, to create a work which soars and crashes with immense weight, plotting an unlikely interzone between Ferry Corsten and Ben Frost.
‘Ultra’ follows two EPs and a mixtape for Tri Angle records, plus production work for Kanye West, Travis Scott and Danny Brown. Christ's recent years have seen him lead an all-fronts cultural enquiry into the legacy and absence of Euphoria in contemporary cultural life. His wildly successful "Trance Party'' event series boasts a long list of diverse guests including Arca, SOPHIE, Yves Tumor, Bhad Bhabie and Altern8; while his ongoing collaboration with visual artist David Rudnick has brought attention beyond the music world, with the pair infamously commissioned to produce monuments to the victims of the historically-disputed "Trance War" at London’s prestigious ICA in 2016, and at the 2018 Moscow Biennale.
The music video for Ultra was directed by David Rudnick and Daniel Swan, assisted by BAFTA Award winning Ocean Cinematographer Chris Bryan. The video was shot in extreme weather conditions at the O'ahu Waimea shorebreak, in Hawaii.