Body Meat is the longstanding project of Christopher Taylor, a master craftsman who constantly grinds at pushing musical and rhythmic boundaries into really idiosyncratic yet super catchy tunes. His latest outing is Starchris, a double LP from over the summer that distills an extreme array of influences, stretching from heavy cuts of dance, R&B, pop, noise, and experimental music.
Body Meat’s music is an extreme dedication to craft, taste, physical agility, and self-reflection. Pretty much every beat, flash of a drum, stroke of the keys and more is the result of Chris playing instruments in conjunction with his apt sense of sound design. At a glance, you can pick up inspiration from producers like Arca, Sophie, AG Cook, DJ Rashad, and more beyond the foundation of rock history and world music at the base of Body Meat’s music. Most of the aforementioned producers make their work using DAWs and PCs for the most part, whereas Chris takes it all further by incorporating a direct approach with electronic drum pads, keyboards, auxiliary percussion made of random items, and at least in earlier points, guitars with unorthodox setups. You can peek at Body Meat’s live sets to get a sense of the endless artistry and at times freakish approach to making peculiar and catchy music.
The insane evolution of Body Meat really can’t be understated. I am lucky to have seen the growth of Chris’s art for a long time, dating as early as 2016 back when the music was at large an experimental rock-based outfit drawing ilk from bands like Deerhoof and especially then contemporaries like Palm. More about Chris’s history though – he’s grown up and moved all across the states with musician-turned-scientist parents, having spent his adulthood between San Francisco, Denver, Philadelphia, and now New York. Chris’s upbringing and current life have been marked by a nonstop pursuit of curiosity, having dabbled and gotten amazing at things like skateboarding, photography, music, video games, fashion, and more. Chris attended school in San Francisco briefly for photography before settling in Denver for a long stretch. Denver is where he entered his foray into experimental music publicly, most notably with the band Scary Drugs sometime around 2015. Scary Drugs’s music felt similar to slightly older acts of the previous decade like Abe Vigoda in their off-kilter, somewhat tropic approach to experimental rock. Scary Drugs’s eventual dissolution would eventually lend into early Body Meat, also characterized by a heightened sense of noise rock punctuated with dense and atypical rhythms. The then Body Meat had Chris at the helm with the aid of past bandmates and friends like Maxx Hipp, Luke Thinnes, Michael Stein, and more. This crew and more would serve as the early core of BM in an era around 2016-2017, who would go on to tour the states and put out releases online, catching some steam underground.
It wasn’t until a legendary show was on the books dated for March 2017 in Philadelphia that Body Meat caught my eye. The original bill was Body Meat, Cabo Boing from Florida, and two Atlanta acts Hellier Ulysses and Pallas. Hellier Ulysses was a sparsely known but legendary band at the time to underground obsessives like me (a story for another date). Pallas was also a newly minted but alluring band from the same scene as HU on tour for the first time. Cabo Boing hailed from a noise background originally from a band called Yip Yip that played with bands like the Locust and other experimental acts in the early aughts. The show took place at a peculiar house spot called Baird Mansion Atrium in Philly, which was a decently spacious spot nestled in a weird housing complex that was at one point some sort of train hub. Videographer, artist, and curator Richard Phillips was largely in charge of that show and the space for the most part, and in that era he would film a grip of local underground shows, eventually having a burgeoning career making music videos under the banner Powered By Wind. In the couple of months leading up to the gig, Hellier Ulysses had to drop the date but the show carried on with Pallas, Body Meat, Cabo Boing and local Sitcom, which was a pretty humorous and whimsical pop-rock band of the time and scene. I lived in Columbus, Ohio briefly around that time and made the distinct trip to just go to this show, which was about an 8-hour bus ride. The show was amazing, decently attended, and at least a pivotal night for the Body Meat crew enough that it convinced Chris and Max Hipp to move to Philly within the same year. Luckily, much of this show was captured on Youtube by Richard Phillips that you can peep below.
The near several-year period that followed Body Meat’s 2017 move from Denver to Philly seemed like a bountiful time. From my outside glance, Chris gained a quick and steady foothold in the scene, having befriended other musicians at the time local to that area where experimental music was seemingly more cherished and more in the local mix. Chris became friends and involved with bands like Palm, Old Maybe, Palberta, Likes / Ada Band, and much more. Ada from Likes / Ada Band in particular took Chris into the fold by inviting to play in their band and spreading the influence of using specific gear like sample pads and midi/synth pickups on guitars, which was then utilized by other bands like Palm, Red Sea and Mothers.
BM’s early Philly era was categorized with releases such as their split with the Washboard Abs in the summer of 2017 along with the “World’s Largest Drum” complication of tracks immediately after.
Chris would eventually ditch the guitar-based setup and focus on more rhythmically centered electronic music, incorporating elements from footwork, experimental dance music, R&B, deconstructed club, etc. This all came to fruition in Body Meat’s 2019 release “Truck Music”, an amazing album drenched with intricate and infectious cadences, vocals and high-quality production. It’s at this point that Body Meat encompassed all things Chris – his passion in all varieties of art and expression with influences and contributions from his local friends and inspirations. Body Meat from this point on live at least would cycle between Chris solo or with one additional member, often on an electronic drum pad. 2018 would be the latest time I caught Body Meat live, this time with Chris on keys and Matthew Andregg from Mothers fame who would eventually lend aid to Chris in future projects and other bands like Palm.
Chris would go on to enjoy successes off Truck Music touring with acts like Injury Reserve and cool gigs off the East Coast. In the time leading Truck Music through the initial COVID lockdown, Body Meat would eventually drop the Year of The Orc EP in 2021, taking the production, pop, and percussion stakes of Truck Music much higher, including a guest spot from ambient legend Laraaji.
That leads us to now – the debut of Starchris. Body Meat’s latest album swaps out a tiny amount of the spasmodic energy from before into a cohesively crafted record that incorporates the greatness of the past 20/30 years of leftfield dance, R&B, and pop in a gracious experimental fashion. It’s the ultimate marriage of Chris’s aptitude as a great musician and the endless pursuit of design and taste into a product of endless hours of work that internalizes Chris’s relations with friends, love and fame. Body Meat’s earlier work stretching as far back as the first records seemingly dealt with worldly estrangement with society and relationships and growth, where as this new record feels like Chris is taking this determination and conversation with relationships and self-struggle head on, all the while leaving a ton of room for interpretation. There’s so much deftness to this record to dig into, spawning its musicality to influences from pop culture and video games. Video games in particular was a huge influence on this record, influencing Chris to take the philosophy of creating video games and translating that understanding into music across framework and lyricism, even as going far as creating a game as a companion piece to a track off the album. You can read more into the video game aspect in an intervie with Chris and the Creative Independent here
Body Meat and Chris’s artistry stands the test of time as proof of boundless creativity and the never-ending pursuit of curiosity. It’s been mindblowing to witness the evolution and pivoting of the project for almost the past decade as it represents a tireless pursuit of improving and trying new things and building skills not only as an independent artist but as a musical and visual collaborator. Stoked that the music is catching onto larger audiences and that the music isn’t stopping anytime soon with live dates across the US including stops in Los Angeles and San Francisco soon. Checkout Body Meat’s music and live dates below