FR 164: Tyler Friedman Makes Music to Levitate To

The composer on microtonal systems, minimal techno, ethnomusicology—and San Diego "spock rock."

Tyler Friedman (photo: Camille Blake)

I’m not sure I’ve heard a more transporting album this year than Tyler Friedman’s METLASR. Putting it on for the first time—perhaps the first dozen times—feels like immersing yourself in an unfamiliar but extremely buoyant, strangely colored liquid. It feels like floating.

Partly, that’s a function of Friedman’s rhyth…