Josh Lucan’s Sonic Alchemy: Channeling Tangerine Dream’s Nebulae

The video opens with Josh Lucan’s childhood memories, where Tangerine Dream’s music filled the air like a spectral mist, both alien and familiar. Lucan’s approach is not mere imitation; it’s a deep analysis, a quest to uncover the secret ingredients that give this music its sense of infinite space. He speaks of the challenge in reverse engineering the creative process, tracing the path from inspiration to execution, much like mapping constellations in a night sky.

We are invited to witness the transformation of abstract ideas into tangible sound. Lucan’s process is a dance between analysis and intuition, where each step is both a discovery and a return. The video promises not just technical insight, but a glimpse into the emotional architecture of sequencer-based music—a place where small motifs grow into sprawling galaxies of sound.

At the heart of Lucan’s sonic nebula are the Intellijel Metropolix and Squarp Hapax, two sequencers that serve as portals to complexity. The Metropolix’s patterns, with their shifting pitch stages and evolving algorithms, are like fractals—simple at their core, yet endlessly unfolding. Lucan demonstrates how minute changes in sequence order or modulation can birth entirely new sonic landscapes, each one a unique planet in the Tangerine Dream universe.

The Hapax, meanwhile, weaves its own threads, layering bass lines and mirrored patterns that ripple through the arrangement. Lucan’s method is tactile and alive: MIDI sketches become living performances, hardware and software entwined. The sequencers don’t just play notes—they breathe, accumulate, and shimmer, each ratchet and accumulator a pulse in the cosmic fabric. The result is a tapestry of interlocking patterns, always in motion, never static.

Lucan’s attention to detail is where the magic crystallizes. Ratcheting—those sudden bursts of repeated notes—injects random energy, keeping the ear alert and the sequence alive. He shows how these rhythmic flares, inspired by Tangerine Dream’s own techniques, prevent repetition from becoming monotony. The accumulator, meanwhile, nudges pitches upward, letting melodies spiral skyward before resetting, like a comet’s arc across the night.

Volume automation becomes a sculptor’s hand, fading elements in and out as if they were drifting clouds. The song’s introduction emerges from silence, as though we’re tuning into a transmission already echoing through the void. Lucan’s use of automation ensures the piece never stagnates; textures bloom, recede, and return, each entrance and exit a narrative beat in the unfolding sonic story.