Body Meat is in his own world on STARCHRIS

Emotionally cloning their persona and leading the listener on a complete journey. Chris Taylor aka Body Meat endeavors on STARCHRIS, his debut album, to track himself as an avatar in an RPG, he explodes his viewpoint and gains a fresh perspective allowing him to comment on his innermost feelings. Exploring self-doubt and trauma, as if they’re dimensions within the world to solve through trial and error, to address and move past. STARCHRIS is constructed, often meticulously so, around troubled themes but this is by no means a concept album in a traditional sense.

Taylor assembles collages of noise, dance beats, autotuned vocals, hooks, and melodies to weave through his own world populated with the drama and chaos of indecisive thoughts and moments captured in time, reused, and shuffled around. To that end, the entirety of the music calls forward and back to itself. His vocal “I’m right here” grounds the listener at various points throughout, like a cut scene or save point. But there are shifting views and people around who are right, where. Time and progression are not linear and the trajectories we’re thrown around on listening to the polyrhythms of “The Mad Hatter” are a fine example with a cyclical melody spinning off into space. The trap tones of the previously released single “High Beams” are as close to a compact ‘song’ as we can get but even here there are many broken beats and gear changes.

There are periods where we find ourselves thrown full throttle into sandbox mode where the music ‘rules’ don’t apply as Taylor chops sound and styles, emerging from the melee riding a wave of dance vibes, “Crystalize” and title track “Starchris” being the most obvious examples. The percussive grooves and new creations generated also come with a tongue-in-cheek or self-referential line at the end of the latter track where Chris states, “I am trying way too hard”. It’s not necessarily the same Chris Taylor though as there are multiple avatars. Much as the architect scene in Matrix Reloaded reveals Neo to be simply a new version of many versions prior. The scenarios lived out around Taylor rely on the intuitive framework he’s constructed, he populates this with emotional turmoil, filters it, and distorts it.

It’s true to call STARCHRIS an album of obsession. Chris Taylor has sweated over every noise and its place in the mix. It’s a form of word-building that demands a god-like overview but with that need to be omnipotent, there are also moments when things fall through the cracks. The result is not some utopia but feels transformative.

As mighty a project as STARCHRIS is, the soundtrack to his personal alter-lives there’s a danger of navel-gazing that fails to engage with everyone and as it plays out the increasingly self-questioning and indulgent lyrics tend to read like, the problems are not ‘me but you’. “Demons” fills itself full of moments that demand ‘tell me I’m fine’ or something similar but the outcome is, yes I’m good just need to work on things’. Coming forty minutes after all of the self-examination you can feel rather defeated that little progress has been made. Perhaps “I’m right here” refers to this stagnation? There’s no denying this album is an extraordinary avant-pop celebration of grand proportions and not everything hits but the ambition to try is ultimately what counts and the bar is unbelievably high, not just from Chris’s perspective but how journeying with him surprises and changes us too.