Chris d’Eon is from the same Montreal experimental DIY loft milieu as Grimes. After spending his formative years steeped in classical piano training, d’Eon tore through hardcore noise punk and now trades in psychedelic out-pop with releases on Divorce Records, Hippos In Tanks, and Arbutus.
Originally from Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, d’Eon was reputedly given a synthesizer and mixer by forward thinking parents when he was just four years old. He grew up to become the guitarist/vocalist of Halifax’s hardcore noise punk duo, Dead Hookers, then studied Iranian, Arabic, and Turkish music in college and went to northern India after graduation, where he lived in a monastery and learned the dranyen, or Tibetan lute. He later moved to Montréal and began making dubstep-flavoured techno, playing bass for Omon Ra II and co-running a tape label called Numbers Station.
D’eon’s debut EP, Palinopsia (2010), was one of the earliest releases on influential US indie imprint Hippos in Tanks. Darkbloom, a split EP with Grimes followed in 2011, and his full-length, LP, appeared in early 2012. His ongoing free download project Music for Keyboards, is an obvious nod to classical works for piano, that ties together the blissfull soundworlds of Tangerine Dream, reinterpretations of hokey pop songs, and symphonic forms.