The FADER’s longstanding GEN F series profiles the emerging artists you need to know right now.

For the past couple of months, Chris Taylor has been busy “making tracks” about naptime and baby clothes. According to the Body Meat producer, he’s been coming up with material almost every day, like a recent jingle about trying to wrangle his infant son into a onesie and a constantly evolving song dedicated to “tummy time.”

“You know we're going to be making a whole new tummy time track,” the proud new father says, chuckling, adding that his son is particularly amused by these ditties. Taylor recalls the way the baby would fervently kick his wife’s belly while listening to Taylor’s album, Starchris, in the womb. He’s still unsure, but I reassure him that all signs point toward his son already being a fan.

When I initially spoke to the experimental club producer and video game designer in August about Starchris, his full-length debut that’s out now, he was reluctant to share too many specifics about its story. Like many people, Taylor found the chaos of a post-pandemic world to be overwhelming and all-consuming, filled with unknowns and things we can’t control; that spurred him to create something that would provide an internal “peacefulness” upon completion.

A record that borrows from the loosely constructed storylines of first-person fantasy RPG video games, Starchris replaces pixels with malleable synths pulsing against the fried glitches of dying electronics, a squeaky violin, and the anxious wheeze of an impending panic attack. As Taylor explains, the record is meant to feel “ever-changing,” with its dueling polyrhythms and clashing sonics reflecting a party of four archetypal characters that exist within Taylor — The Black Mage, The Warrior, The Healer, and The Thief — collectively known as “Starchris.” Across its songs, the foursome — who are featured on the album art — tackle the type of traumatic baggage that “everyone has to fight through [and] holds them back from something.”

“I think each of these characters has that within them, whether it be extreme anxiety, extreme depression, a physical ailment, hunger, not being able to sleep, lack of money,” Taylor says.

He says nothing about the record’s narrative is concrete as Starchris mirrors “player’s choice” games, a design concept that encourages gamer autonomy and often results in unexpected consequences or side quests. The idea of listener autonomy is why Taylor has been reluctant to say much about parts of his personal life until our second conversation, where he talks about his past informing the splitting of “Starchris” into four different entities.

Born in Salt Lake City but brought up in various states across the country, the now New York-based musician was raised by scientist parents — who met as funk musicians — working on “a catalytic converter for factories.” The nature of their job resulted in a fluctuating financial situation for the family and regularly “having to move around and become these different people to survive,” he says. Starchris was inspired by this environment defined by uncertainty.

The record traces Taylor’s real-life journey of working to put himself back together as he returns to his latent state as “the ultimate energy star.” Emerging from the murky, cosmic chaos of the album’s opener, “A Tone in The Dark,” he dives right into the conflict-driven “High Beams,” a song that he describes as an aggressive “boss battle” involving a frantic programmer doomed by his own sloppy coding, which Taylor alludes to being some sort of contextual flashback to “where the drama comes from.”

From there, his band of fantastical characters weather the constant push and pull of sudden pitch shifts from AutoTune dancehall delivery to footwork-inspired basslines and punishing nü-metal riffs; Taylor manages to keep these transitions fluid while still holding ample space for outside projection. There is “Electrische,” with its moments of anxious exploration that fade into the scrambled syncopated melody of “Focus.” There’s the shape-shifting climax “Crystalize,” which Taylor says is a “culmination of everything that I've done, using every production technique I've ever known.” By the end, it’s clear that Starchris contains a story that adheres to the traditional narrative arc used by writers, featuring a “dark night of the soul” followed by a profound moment of revelation that culminates in the melismatic oasis that is the album’s final track, “Paradise.”

“It's all of this energy throughout my life… coming together to be this one thing,” Taylor says of “Paradise,” adding that “when people ask what [that song is about], I'm like, ‘It's the idea for this record. I’m trying to utilize every part of me’”

When he started working on Starchris three years ago, Taylor didn’t realize it was a subconscious manifestation in many ways, one that would “completely, unintentionally” culminate in releasing a critically acclaimed debut record, becoming a father, and finding peace with his family and a newfound purpose at the same time. It was only after spending “an emotional” release week “crying a lot” that he realized all that “hard work and how long it took” had played a big role in helping him reach a place where he finally felt whole and strong enough “to release this big weight off my shoulders” and close out a particularly tumultuous chapter of his life.

“The record, it was like this full energetic release,” Taylor says. “It was very weird, like, I've never felt that before.”

Similar to the entity that is Starchris, he was finally at the end of his long and difficult quest after a period of pandemic hardships, existential questioning and, ultimately, healing. He’d finally reached the goal he set out to achieve when he “wanted there to be this thing that felt like I was at peace” — the notion embodied by the airy exaltation of “Paradise.”

“It’s this beautiful feeling; this is where I wanted to get to,” Taylor beams. It’s hard not to be touched by his almost dream-like expression, the genuine joy within every word he uses to describe the impossible amount of love he has for his son. “I found my purpose,” Taylor says, his voice full of pride. “My family.”