D'eon Leviathan

d'Eon is Montreal-based composer / producer Chris d’Eon. Since beginning his musical practice in the 2000s, his unclassifiable catalog has presented us with baroque keyboard performances, digital chamber music, hi-definition beatmaking in the pop and R&B idioms, glitchy abstractions composed with chance operations and digital hyper-fragmentation tactics, and all manner of experiments that attest to his drive to reach the outer limits of eclectic composition. d’Eon is perhaps best known for his releases on the dearly missed experimental electronic label Hippos in Tanks, including a split EP with Grimes called Darkbloom in 2011, which planted his post-classical minimalist works along an influential cultural spectrum with labelmates like James Ferraro, Arca, Dean Blunt, Laurel Halo, and Oneohtrix Point Never. Leviathan, d’Eon’s second HausMo release, follows Rhododendron (2021), continuing his triumphant return to pressing music on physical formats.

It’s hard to pin down exactly what makes a melody reach listeners with a sentimental quality, yet d’Eon channels his instincts as a composer and his breadth of knowledge in music theory and harmony to nail this exact feeling time after time on Leviathan. His penchant for re-interpolating motifs in multiple pieces and his deliberation in sequencing his compositions into a diverse overarching flow imbue his digital chamber music with a holistic narrative quality, creating a multi-movement program of cohesive classical works as much as an album of electronic music.

d'Eon's music has long touched on religious themes. Leviathan shies away from overt religious or philosophical gravity, retreating instead into the realm of personal listening music. During the time of the bubonic plague in Europe, music was expanding out from strictly liturgical venues and into the home — music neither for worship nor for dancing in public. It is in this way that d'Eon's electronic compositions are not sacred, nor are they dance music.