Chris Joss


Chris Joss is a French multi-instrumentalist and record producer.

Early life and education

Chris Joss was born in France. When he was 14, he received an acoustic guitar and taught himself to play. In 1981, he founded his own band at high school.

Career

In 1987, Joss released his first record with his three-member band on EMI. In 1991, he released his third record on CBS with a seven-member band. He moved to London, where he lived throughout the 1990s, until it became too expensive. In 1994 he played with a group called Monk and recorded and produced his first album. In 1995 and 1996, he embarked on recording his inaugural LP, Music From 'The Man With a Suitcase', conceptualized as the soundtrack for an imaginary 1960s TV series. In 1998, the title track was included in a compilation in the UK.
Joss returned to France and secured a deal with Cristal Publishing in La Rochelle, which facilitated an agreement with the French indie label Pulp Flavor. When US record label ESL re-released You've Been Spiked in 2004 with new cover art, the cover described him as a DJ, leading to a string of DJ-related offers. Joss only had the chance to play a few live sets, twice in Amsterdam and twice in his home town in 2007. For these performances he used Ableton Live, a tool designed for music production and live performance. He couldn't continue with these live performances because of his worsening tinnitus at the time. When the album's cover art was adapted for a double LP in 2007 and later re-released on his own label, Joss replaced the word "DJ" with "instrumentalist" to better reflect his role as a composer and a musician.

Personal life

Joss has suffered since childhood from misophonia, a condition that makes one become extremely sensitive to everyday repeated sounds. He titled his 10th album Misophonia to bring attention to the condition. In 2005 he suffered an injury which caused permanent damage to the cartilage and tendons in his elbow, limiting wrist movement to a quarter turn and making extended periods of playing painful. As a result, he no longer performs live.

Work

His music ranges from funk to electronica, and tracks excerpted from his releases are featured in movie trailers such as Accepted, Argo,'' Hotel for Dogs, Inside Deep Throat, Ocean's Thirteen, and Role Models, and the television shows Six Feet Under and Better Call Saul.
His 1999 album The Man with a Suitcase was part of a trend in the late 1990s of "imaginary soundtracks", compositions created to accompany films that did not actually exist. In the soundtrack, he attempted to pay homage to works of the 1960s and 1970s such as The Avengers and Mission Impossible'', with a mixture of jazz, pop, rock, and funk. His 2008 track "I want Freedom", taken from his fourth album, is part of Apple Inc.'s iPhoto 10 and iPhoto 11 software.
As of 2021, Joss had released twelve solo albums plus a remix album; five of them by ESL Music and six on his own Teraphonic Records.

Albums

  • The Man With A Suitcase
  • Dr Rhythm
  • You've Been Spiked
  • Teraphonic Overdubs
  • I've Been Remixed
  • Sticks
  • Monomaniacs Volume 1
  • No Play No Work
  • Bimbo Satellite
  • Escape Unlikely
  • Misophonia
  • Monomaniacs Volume II
  • Hyperacusis
  • TR013
  • Classic Lineup

    Singles

  • Bombay By Bus 12 inch
  • The Gnomes 12 inch
  • Discotheque Dancing 12 inch
  • A Part In That Show 12 inch
  • Brilliantine a gogo 12 inch
  • Superman 12 inch
  • I Want Freedom 12 inch
  • Toxic Smoke/Sequence of Spectators 7 inch

    Remixes

  • Jody Watley - Borderline CD
  • Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest - He's A Pirate 2x12 inch & CD
  • Jody Watley - Looking For A New Love CD
  • Joe Bataan - Chick A Boom CD
  • Woody Herman - Mambo Herd CD
  • Thunderball - Thunder In The Jungle 12 inch
  • Praful - Sigh CD
  • Bebo Valdes - Ita Morales CD
  • AM & Shawn Lee - I Didn't Really Listen
  • Yerba Buena - Sugar Daddy CD

    Production

  • Monk - Ten Tips For Charles Berry's Hips"
  • Cazwell - I buy my socks on 14th Street 2 versions
  • Cazwell - The Sex That I Need
  • ''Los Amigos Invisibles - Corduroy''

    Other releases

  • Inside Deep Throat Original Soundtrack CD
  • Stereoscope Jerk Explosion - La Panthere Pop Sitar on 2 tracks
  • Atfunk - Rewire Walks keyboard on 3 tracks
  • Atfunk - Soundprism keyboards on Restart and Tranquilito

    Resources