Ten years into his career as a musician and artist, Ethan Tyrer feels like he’s arrived at the beginning. The ambitious multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, and arranger of labyrinthian tunes has spent most of the last decade in solitude, refining his artistic powers and developing a sound unlike anything else. An adamant dreamer, Tyrer’s heart and soul are completely devoted to his creations, a devotion that has set his life towards creating “something timeless…something that will be remembered.” And while Tyrer has come to understand what a long and difficult road this is, he feels that his upcoming album, Future Soul, is a monumental step towards producing the masterpiece he feels waiting in his soul.
After breaking onto the scene with a more pop-styled take on the rock genre with 2014’s, “I Saw You Float Away,” Tyrer quickly found himself pulled from the light into the shadows. He had left his home of rural Wisconsin for Seattle, where he released his first full-fledged EP, Cannibalize, under the moniker Amina. The EP was met with interest from critics and indie labels alike. The standout single, “I Saw You Float Away,” became a frequent play on college and online radio and found Tyrer regularly performing at Seattle’s Conor Byrne Pub and LO-FI Performance Gallery.
Despite the interest in Cannibalize, Tyrer did not follow up the EP with more of what had made it successful. Instead, Tyrer’s intuition led him down a different path, one that led into the shadows of his own psyche. What followed was his exit from the Seattle music scene and home of 5 years. He moved out of the public eye to Oakland, CA on nothing more than a whim and a yearning for solitude with which to unveil what was lurking deeper in his mind. There he spent two years in isolation trying to make sense of the recordings he had begun in Seattle and developing his skills as an artist and animator, wanting to fully realize every aspect of his singular vision.
This mysterious energy lurking within him eventually became known as 2018’s Anacord, the culmination of a four-year, nonstop experimental phase of complete meticulousness and sonic searching. Unconventionally, Anacord’s ideas, themes, and soul stemmed from the images Tyrer was creating alongside his musical practice, his art and music finally having been combined into one completely synesthetic creative outpouring. Tyrer told SuperRare in a 2020 interview that “the music was born from the abstract landscapes I was making on the computer. Rather than starting with melodies or chords, the songs slowly seemed to grow out of the sounds and textures that I felt existed in the pictures.”
On Anacord Tyrer sounds like a soul trapped in limbo, wandering through haunted subconscious landscapes. His videos and art from the album use the frequent motif of a ghost that one can only start to feel represents him going along this journey. Even the album’s more straightforward songs are tinged by a ghostly and abstract sonic palette. As a long time reader of the classics, Tyrer says the album was largely inspired by epics such as Dante’s Divine Comedy and Goethe’s Faust; i.e. the hero’s journey of classical literature. “The only problem,” he says, “is that the album is stuck down there. There is no emerging from the underworld.”
For such a long and completely enveloping period of his life through the proverbial (and literal) underworld, it is no wonder his reintegration into the real world afterwards did not come so smoothly or happily, but rather as “a giant explosion.” As the album’s completion was drawing near, Tyrer decided to relocate to Los Angeles where he felt he might have a better chance of success, a fitting place to debut such a machination. However, luck would not have it in his favor. The record flopped, Tyrer’s relationship of four years ended in chaos, and he found himself completely alone and without purpose in a giant unknown metropolis.
“I thought that record was the key to everything. It turns out that its failure was actually the key,” says Tyrer. Never one to be swayed or discouraged, Tyrer chose to double down on his newfound and often alienating home of Los Angeles. After a year recovering his senses, he was ready to carry on, his spirit more determined than ever to serve its purpose. He built a studio and began spending hours playing guitar or piano and singing, determined to refine his voice and songwriting abilities. He changed his musical name to Gorus, the name of a character from one of his paintings and a spirit eternally trapped in stone. (which was also recently exhibited on a giant billboard in Times Square).
Today, on the eve of beginning to release his newest material, Tyrer feels much more confident and self assured, having at last laid the groundwork for his life and work. With Future Soul, Tyrer looks to bring things full circle, combining the introspection and sonic puzzlery`of Anacord with a more accessible sound that he hopes will reach a wider audience. With that circular nature of life feeling completed once again, the light and dark equally balanced, Tyrer feels ready at last for what he feels will be the era of his “mature work.” It remains to be seen whether Tyrer will ever procure the masterpiece he is dreaming of, but one thing is certain: his unique vision and dedication to his art make him an artist worth watching.