TYCHO – Dive (Part 1)

Looking for music to make whoopee to? Ghostly International’s Scott Hansen has you covered with his second LP, Dive, under the Tycho moniker. André Salas rushes to avoid the Wrath of Brandon in analyzing Dive’s nostalgic allusions to Boards of Canada and Tangerine Dream in this letter to Zach Evans.

Tycho – “Hours” (Download mp3)

From: André Salas
To: Zach Evans

My first thought at seeing the cover of Tycho’s new album Dive was that it looked suspiciously like one of those prog-rock vinyls my older brother would inevitably bring home after a day of rummaging the used bins at Kim’s. Regardless, and perhaps spurred on by the specter of our Brandon’s wrath, I nonetheless slipped the damn thing on and prayed for the best. While I wasn’t completely off, Dive is pretty much dreamy electronica: at times it conjures up memories of Boards Of Canada, during the rare upbeat numbers I even recalled FM Attack. During the more boring stretches I felt I was shopping for incense at my local lesbian-run new age emporium.

Don’t get me wrong, I love instrumental electronic music as much as the next guy, a big obsession of mine being the late-era soundtrack work of Tangerine Dream (I seem to be alone in that, damn prog purists). The thing is, after a few very similar tracks, you tend to drift. Or in my case, start skipping tracks. See, the advantage an electronic score for a film has (can I rave about the soundtrack to Michael Mann’s Manhunter here?) is that you come to the music with certain imagery and emotions already bonded to the music, and you just go from there.

That’s when it hit me – I’m coming at this the wrong way. Tycho’s Dive sets up a soundscape to create our own imagery and become the soundtrack to whatever the fuck it triggers in our thoughts. Right? Maybe not, but this new attitude, with me firmly set as the star of my own soft-focus feature, got me through the album and damned if I didn’t end up warming up to it more. Not a WHOLE lot more, but ya know… it’s pretty. Maybe too pretty, but I’ll betcha it makes great background music for whoopee. Or dreams, of course.

Bleep bloop bloop bleep,
André

Dive is out now via Ghostly International.