Chris Joss

Chris Joss was born in France. According to his website "his parents enrolled him in electronic organ lessons aged 12 which taught him the basics of music", although he always wanted to play drums. When he was 14, he received an acoustic guitar and learnt playing autodidactically. In 1981, he founded his own band at high school. In 1984, after dropping out of school, "he began investing in recording and electronic equipment".[2]

In 1987, Joss released his first record with his 3 member band on EMI. In 1991, he released his third record on CBS with 7 member band.[2] He moved to London, where he lived throughout the 1990s, until it became too expensive.[3] In 1994 he played with a group called Monk and recorded and produced his first album.[2]

Joss has been suffering from misophonia since his childhood. He developed tinnitus and hyperacusis, and no longer performs live.[2]

His music ranges from funk to electronica, and tracks excerpted from his releases are featured in movie trailers such as Accepted (2006), Argo (2012), Hotel for Dogs (2009), Inside Deep Throat (2005), Ocean's Thirteen (2007), and Role Models (2008),[3] and the television shows Six Feet Under[4] and Better Call Saul.[5]

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.[6] 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.[6] His 2008 track "I want Freedom", taken from his fourth album, is part of Apple Inc.'s iPhoto 10 and iPhoto 11 software.[7]

As of 2021, Joss had released twelve solo albums plus a remix album; five of them by ESL Music[8] and six on his own Teraphonic Records.

• Official website