Stelar promises his most ambitious and cinematic work yet. While rooted in the electronic foundations that defined his career, the record pushes further into sweeping pop, late-Romantic grandeur, and classical flourishes. "After 30 years of making music, I've landed back where it all began: in curiosity, in wonder, in, `What happens if I just try this now?'" he explains. "Every day brought new ideas, new images, new sounds. At times, it was a real tsunami of emotions." Thematically, Artifact explores the "little traces" people leave behind across their lives_memories, fragments, scraps of thought, and echoes of past experiences. Inspiration came from childhood half-memories as well as Stelar's fascination with parallel worlds, different dimensions, and afterlives.