Tyler Friedman - Revolve

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  • California's Tyler Friedman is a newcomer to the Kontra-Musik crew; Revolve is his debut single, to be followed by Night in the Woods in October. Both releases take the label as far into techno's outer reaches as it has traveled yet. I exchanged some mails with Friedman last fall when he was shopping demos around; he told me he was inspired by Ricardo Villalobos' interest in stretching and shifting club music's timekeeping "without entirely breaking from the most obvious tropes of the genre." Not only has he nailed that difficult task, he's done it with more elegance and surprise than Villalobos himself has brought to many of his recent releases. "Revolve" certainly shows the minimal maestro's influence in its soft, rounded percussion, which rolls like pebbles at the bottom of a stream; it also shares some of Shackleton's ethno preoccupations, with leathery hand drums and crackling underbrush. The nine-and-a-half minute track develops according to its own logic, beginning with tentative, plinking rhythms before getting swept up in squalls of pitch-bent synthesizer lead and shimmering feedback reminiscent of Seefeel's Succour. Jonsson/Alter take a slightly more floor-focused view on the B-side, honing in on a restless funk bassline and melting siren top line, and drawing it out for 11 minutes of sensual, slightly unhinged meandering—destination unknown, and unimportant.
  • Tracklist
      A Revolve B Tyler's Dream (A Jonsson & Alter Remix)
RA