Metereze — Raresh’s Label and the Experimental Edge of Rominimal

Metereze is Raresh’s personal imprint — launched in 2013, vinyl-only, distributed by OurOwn. One of three architects of a:rpia:r, Raresh built a second label that runs on the same discipline but tilts somewhere different. If [a:rpia:r] defined the sound, Metereze has been quietly expanding what it can contain. Same bloodline. Different pulse rate.

The Philosophy

There’s a phrase the scene keeps reaching for: slightly more experimental. It fits. Where [a:rpia:r] set the blueprint — dry kicks, percussive swing, negative space — Metereze has always had room for something more patient, more searching. The rominimal labels guide puts it plainly: deeper, more patient, the same principles applied with different light. Not a departure from what rominimal is — more like what happens when one of the people who built the genre keeps working without the obligation to stay inside it.

About eighteen catalogue numbers across eleven years. One, maybe two releases a year if that. The pace is deliberate, unhurried in the way that turns each pressing into an event rather than an update.

How It Started

Dubtil inaugurated the label with Odihnioara in 2013 — a track that told the world this sound had a second channel beyond [a:rpia:r]. That first pressing set the template: no announcements, music arriving fully formed, pressed in limited quantities. Arapu’s Anthology EP followed in the early catalogue. His MTRZ011 in 2019 confirmed what his 2018 AtipicLab debut had started — the scene’s most careful labels were watching, and Metereze had decided he was ready.

The Records That Define It

Barac’s Variety of Different Feelings LP is the record people reach for to explain Metereze. Melodic. Psychedelic at points. Something more atmospheric than the scene had quite been. His earlier “Does It Float” (2014) was the pivot — from abstraction into something more accessible without any loss of depth. Two Barac records and the shape of the label becomes clear: it’s not afraid of a full thought, an album side, a long-form statement. That’s not common in this world.

Sublee brought the Ideepsum and Youmanity LPs — the latter arriving in 2024, proving the label still had room for full-length arguments a decade in. Other names across the catalogue: Melodie, VincentIulian, Ion Ludwig, Noha.

The 2022 run showed the range. Mihai Popescu (MP) brought house-inflected grooves with “Jing” (MTRZ010.1, July). Then TC Studio — Tulbure and Chereches — pressed the “Fish Police EP” (MTRZ009, December): four tracks on 180g vinyl. Two releases in a year was almost a sprint.

Audio Werner’s Soul LP (MTRZ017, October 2024) arrived as a 2x12" on 180g — jam sessions recorded between 2015 and 2020, selected by Werner and Raresh together, with handcrafted cover art by Melanie Kasper. Werner’s first appearance on the label.

Then Zendid’s “Fradpause EP” (MTRZ016, February 2025): breezy pads on the title cut, the pressure of “Panama Panthers,” dark vocal snippets of “Nature Peinture.” The label’s range in three tracks.

What It Adds Up To

Arapu’s warm swing. Barac’s body-forward push. Sublee’s long-form patience. Audio Werner’s distilled session work. Dubtil’s inaugural statement. These aren’t random placements — each one tells you something about what Raresh hears and what he thinks the music can hold.

Where [a:rpia:r] catalogued the essential rominimal documents, Metereze has been running a different kind of conversation. One where the parameters are understood but the conclusions stay open. Nothing gets pressed because the schedule demands it.

The full context is in the rominimal labels guide. For Raresh himself — the sets, the a:rpia:r co-founding, the two-label arc — that page goes deep. And both Arapu and Barac have their own pages with release timelines and embeds.