In July 2025, following a dream and a travel nurse contract, I packed my bags and moved to Anchorage, Alaska. The plan was simple: stay three months and get out before winter rolled in. But plans have a way of changing in Alaska. Almost a year later, I’m still here, gripped by the state’s wild beauty and endless opportunities for adventure.
As a longtime raver, I quickly noticed that Alaskans prioritize outdoor excursions over nightlife and other kinds of entertainment that folks in big cities take for granted. When glaciers and mountains are in your backyard, a weekend backpacking trip often takes precedence over a night at the club. And with many parts of Alaska lying closer to Russia than to Los Angeles, touring DJs often skip the state entirely, leaving a noticeable gap in live music exposure between Alaska and the lower 48 states.
To get a proper dance music fix, I assumed I’d always have to leave the state and the nature I’d grown obsessed with. But when a video inviting music lovers to a rave in the snow-covered mountains appeared on my timeline, my prayers for a quality dance party in Alaska were answered. The DJ behind it: Taylor Mapes, an Anchorage-born artist on a mission to build a music career from one of the scene’s most rugged outposts—his hometown.
For years, Mapes has opted out of the high-volume gigs and networking opportunities found in cities like LA or NYC to build his project, PØSTERCHILD, around his love for the Alaskan elements—throwing pop-up raves on frozen lakes, soundtracking backcountry ski runs, and playing some of the most remote dance festivals on the continent.
Catching up with EDM Maniac on a cold Alaskan morning, days before announcing his first tour, Mapes discussed the challenges of geographical isolation from the rest of the dance scene and encouraged artists and fans to give Alaska a chance.
EDM Maniac: You’re about to announce your first run of tour dates for 2026. What can you tell us?
PØSTERCHILD: I’m super excited. It’ll be all over Alaska, plus a few stops like LA and Denver.
EDM Maniac: Traveling around Alaska is a transcontinental tour in itself. You’re born and raised in Alaska, correct?
PØSTERCHILD: Yes, I love being here. There are definitely some negatives, but the quality of life is really high. I feel very inspired here.
EDM Maniac: What about Alaska do you feel most inspired by?
PØSTERCHILD: I’m inspired most by nature. When I first got serious about DJing after college, and I came back home to Alaska, I was playing wherever I could for free. I was a little discouraged that there weren’t a lot of places to play. But then I thought about how I could flip the script. Everyone wants to be outside, and everyone likes to party outside, so why don’t we just do these outdoor shows? And it worked. I started getting inspired by Alaska and how different it is from other scenes. It kind of just is what it is, and it is what you make of it. What it has to offer is so much beauty and nature.
Alaska can also feel very slow and grounding, which helps me work on music and not focus on the outside world. I’m able to lock in and tune certain things out, which helps with the creative process a lot. I love going to shows, but there’s not much of that going on here, so it makes the times you are able to get out to see a show that much more meaningful.
EDM Maniac: With Anchorage’s small music scene, do you ever feel like you’re missing out on exposure or musical inspiration?
PØSTERCHILD: I do. Especially with electronic music. I’m always on the hunt for new music online. I’ve always struggled with that. This past fall, I went to Amsterdam Dance Event, which is directly inspiring the project I’m working on right now, but I just find that I have to dig to find music and stay musically stimulated. Living in Alaska, I think you need to seek out more opportunities compared to living in big cities in the lower 48. I make a point to travel at least once a year to stay inspired.
Right now, I’m really into old school 90’s rave music. That can mean happy hardcore, it can mean trance, UKG—and I’m finding that a lot of the European and Australian scenes have really tapped into those old school sounds and genres, and push it forward. I’m trying to put that nostalgic sound into my own production.
EDM Maniac: How did you get into electronic music in the first place?
PØSTERCHILD: I started listening to electronic music in early high school, when Soundcloud was first popular. I just got obsessed with it from listening. Then I got the opportunity to go to a music festival with my parents in Seattle. That’s where I saw electronic music live for the first time. That was my first exposure to any kind of live music. I was listening to rap, and everything, and I remember thinking to myself, “Dude, I just want to go see live music.” It felt like a natural progression for me, seeing music live, then getting Ableton for my birthday when I was 17. That’s when everything went crazy, and it was all I wanted to do.
I went to college in New Orleans to pursue a degree in music business. I was kind of shy in college, but I wanted to release the music I had been making, so towards the end of college, I created PØSTERCHILD. After college, I had to decide if I was going to go to LA or New York and try to make it in the big city or if I was going to stay in Alaska. I went back home after college, and after being away from Alaska for so long and being reintroduced to it, I fell back in love with it. I felt like anything I could do in a big city, I could do in Alaska. I didn’t know many people, and I didn’t know if it was going to work, but I had to at least try.
EDM Maniac: When it comes to shows and community presence, you’re known around the Alaskan scene as one of its foremost trailblazers. How do you feel about that and the work you’ve done to make progress in the scene?
PØSTERCHILD: I learned that nothing is going to get handed to you; you have to go out and create it and put yourself out there. That’s how it goes, whether that’s in the music industry or just in life.
I started creating waves in the scene by just making things happen. I created my music festival, Radiance, to make friends with other DJs and play more shows. I told myself that if I can’t get booked at venues, then I’m going to throw raves in the woods. It’s been years of me just doing my thing and trying to put other people on, and finally, something is starting to build.
Recently, I have started to realize my role because I am a leader in the scene. What I respect from leaders that I look up to are those who give back. I want to do free pop-ups for people. It’s fun for me, and it’s fun for them. I’m starting a DJ club to help teach kids how to DJ, which I’m super excited about. The whole point is to bring the EDM community together.
EDM Maniac: What can you tell us about the youth DJ club?
PØSTERCHILD: I’m taking on a couple of kids, ages 13 to 21, and teaching them how to DJ. It’s four kids right now, and they all want different things, so I’m going to work on one-to-one instruction to show them everything I know. I work on teaching them to DJ, or improving their skills if they already know how, and work on getting them show bookings. I have a really good feeling about it. It feels good to give back.
I feel like I learned on my own growing up, and I wish I had a mentor showing me how to DJ. I found my people and fell into my group in college, and even older, so if I can be someone to look up to for these kids at an earlier age, that would be huge. It also helps me heal my inner child a little, too.
EDM Maniac: Do you ever feel that your growth is limited in Alaska? How do you think Anchorage could change to better support electronic music?
PØSTERCHILD: That’s hard. I want to be an international touring DJ, and I’m also down bad for Alaska. I want this to be my home. Ideally, I would love to tour as much as I can, but I want Alaska to be home base. I hope that as I get bigger, I’ll have more resources and I’ll be able to give back more to the community.
Local organizers like Showdown and Sacred Acre are doing the best they can. I think there needs to be a new club, a new place to go. My roommate Amanda Davis [Dig Sista], a pioneering female DJ, explained to me that in the early 2000s, there were way more places to play. The scene was so much bigger. She talks about all these venues that were smaller, but they just don’t exist anymore.
It sounds like popularity and support for EDM come in waves. The problem is, there’s not enough places to play that are specifically for electronic music. Showdown is bringing up a lot of EDM acts, but they’re playing at Williwaw [Social]. There needs to be a niche place where electronic music can find its home in Anchorage. That would facilitate the scene growing more rapidly.
I tell people that I live in Alaska, and they’re like, “No way, that’s crazy.” It doesn’t have to be that crazy. It’s only a five-hour flight from LA. You can come rip a show sometime. People always say they want to come visit, but rarely ever do. Just make it happen.
PØSTERCHILD’s “Winter Arc” Tour continues this weekend in Wasilla on March 28, ahead of more Alaskan stops in Anchorage, Juneau, Girdwood, Eagle River, and a return to the lower 48 in Seattle through April 30.
Check out more PØSTERCHILD at the artist’s official Instagram page (@posterchild_909).
Featured image courtesy: PØSTERCHILD. Credit: @gradientdaisymedia.
