Chris Farren

On his Polyvinyl debut Born Hot, Chris Farren opens with a question he’ll spend much of the album trying to answer: Why do I feel out of place in my own outer space? Telegraphing his inner narrative with a childlike candor, the Florida-born artist lays bare his most intense anxieties and—in the very same breath—documents the mildly soul-crushing minutiae of everyday life: the strange indecency of blasting AC/DC bangers through an iPhone speaker, the inexplicable bleakness of a Starbucks franchise tucked inside a Target. But with his irrepressible sense of humor and utter lack of self-seriousness, Farren defuses the pain of even the deepest insecurity, gracefully paving the way for pure pop catharsis.