William Tyler

Nashville-based guitarist/composer William Tyler releases his new single “Flight Final” via Psychic Hotline, his first piece of new music since last year’s lauded collaboration with Four Tet’s Kieran Hebden. Written after Tyler left Los Angeles for Nashville in the confused hurry of early 2020, where he left behind most of his recording rig, Tyler rendered new musical sketches with an iPhone and an old tape machine he found while cleaning out his late grandfather’s Mississippi office. He leaned into this admixture of distortions new and old, welding guitar and electronics to connect past echoes to the present.

Tyler’s new single “Flight Final” explores these liminal spaces, with time and tone bending until the whole world blurs. Samples and sequences first spell out a counting game, pulses and numbers phasing into a Steve Reich fantasia for one. But sighing steel guitar and wistful country licks confuse the chronology even more, pulling the seconds apart until they seem to stretch toward forever, an endless horizon of confusion and wonder. This is a soundtrack to realizing that moving forward never entirely means escaping what is behind you. “Final Flight” is also a tease; expect more music from Tyler, exploring these same deep veins, in 2025.