METLASR is an upcoming album for microtonal idiophones and modular synthesizer by composer/producer Tyler Friedman for Radicant_Editions.
Drawing on the legacies of downtown minimalism, METLASR connects avant-garde composition, aspects of global traditional musics and advanced synthesizer technique into an ambitious and singular hybrid. Animated by generative modular sequencing and grounded by undulating bass, the album focuses on an endless cascade of pirouetting geometric melodics, which are spread across a spectrally fused ensemble of crystalline FM and sampled pitched percussion – specifically gamelan orchestra, marimba, mbira, vibraphone and tingklik. The assemblage of voices interlace in fractal mirrors, aggregating into pointillist harmonizations heightened by multiple layers of dub processing. The use of alternative tunings — primarily 24-note per octave just intonation — infuses the polymodal progressions with lush radiance, staging tension between the strange and the beautiful through neon inflections of subtle dissonance.
Entirely improvised, a fact belied by the contrapuntal complexity of it all, METLASR’s seven
tracks were each recorded in a single pass and subject to minimal edits. Although the sound
palette and performance mechanisms remain consistent, each take is rendered in an individual mood and style. The album’s seventy minutes open euphorically with a dense blast of ascending gamelan tessellation [Štoniljid] and carries this uplift into an acrobatic dance of fourth world club [Iljal]. A segment foregrounding the virtual ensemble’s jazz instrumentation [Eleaphor and Okhupuloi] is followed by a 25 minute epic of cosmic psychedelia [Narlotok] and a surprise bout of woodwind acid [Jlaljar], before concluding on a glowing mbiral sunrise [Rapinthliel]. On the vinyl edition, Narlotok is substituted with the sidelong Ghazelon, an analogue exclusive following meditative bass pulsations into a mirror chamber of shimmering melancholy.
The album cover features the painting Self Portrait (1972) by the legendary artist Samia Halaby. Part of a series focused on helixes and cycloids, Self Portrait is a study of light refractions on aluminium: the abstract reflection of the artist warped into metallic angularity. The release of METLASR will be accompanied by two music videos. Iljal was directed by Aron Sanchez-Baranda, known for his xenological visual documentation of Californian tidal systems under the instagram handel Waterbod. Using temporally manipulated images of sea anemones, Baranda-Sanchez evokes the underlying tentacurality of the music’s melodic shapes with motions of multi-colored, bio-morphic abstractions. Štoniljid is a ballet of light reflecting on agitated water. High-resolution cymatic light cyphers and bioluminescent algae dance and shift in rhythm to the polyphonous percussive vibrations, erupting in luminescence in response to bursting gongs, drums and structural crest.
The video was directed by Friedman, using footage made in collaboration with the artist Andreas Greiner. Tyler Friedman’s music vacillates between cosmic impulses and analytical inclinations. Escaping the rift between post-club experimentalism and the theory driven partition of contemporary art, his output spans numerous releases, soundtracks, installations, collaborations and performances and draws on an unwieldy arsenal of divergent references and tactics. Friedman’s solo output focuses on a lysergic strain of dubbed minimalism, equally indebted to late 00s techno and the downtown avant-garde. Created largely in a feedback loop with modular synthesisers and MAX/MSP, his sequences and generative patterns are infused with an intuitive complexity and alchemical formalism. Current trajectories point further away from the strictures of club music and have been increasingly oriented towards alternative tunings and uncanny harmonic interacions. His music has been released on Sweden’s Kontra Musik, Arjuna Records and Tokyo based Protection.
In the context of contemporary art, Friedman works to manifest idea based constellations in
sonic form. Recent installation works have included A Sphere of Water Orbiting a Star, a large scale multi-channel piece with long term collaborators the Otolith Group wormholing the speculative aqua-physics of the Drexciyan mythos, and The Molecular Ordering of Computational Plants, a quadrophonic science fiction narrative — made alongside artist Andreas Greiner — charting the post-human eolutionary conclusion as a biological return to sea born algae.
Friedman is currently based between Venice and Berlin. Radicant_Editions is a new label and production platform initiated by curator/theorist AntoniaMajaca and Tyler Friedman. As a label, Radicant_Editions will focus on producing LPs of advanced musics, with an emphasis on projects given to conceptual depth and originality. METLASR is the label’s debut record and is scheduled for release in March, 2026.
