Los Angeles native Ian Christian Evans comes from a musical family—his grandfather is Puerto Rican-born Jorge Calderon, a Grammy-winning producer and multi-instrumentalist best known for his decades-long collaboration with Warren Zevon, and his grandmother, Tessie Cohen, is an artist & renown percussionist—but his work as Napolian holds up on its own merits. Growing up with a steady diet of hip-hop, Evans cites West Coast rap and G-funk as a major influence, but he’s equally inspired by classical music and veteran electronic provocateurs like Mr. Oizo and Goldie. His genre-blurring vision first appeared on a 2011 split LP for Beer On The Rug, but it was only after connecting with the similarly eccentric Oneohtrix Point Never—and his Software imprint—that Evans properly stepped into the spotlight. The label issued “Rejoice”, his 2012 EP of R&B-flavored computer funk, and later birthed the more ambitious “Incursio”, the 2014 debut Napolian full-length LP. No stranger to collaboration, Evans also mixed & helped produce A$AP Ferg’s celebrated debut “Trap Lord” LP, and has also teamed up with the likes of Tairiq & Garfield, Kelela, and Joel Ford - with whom he released a 2015 joint LP, “Mr. Foolish”, via the Cascine label.
- RBMA 2016