Tycho

San Franciscan laidback-funk-monk Tycho (Scott Hansen a.k.a graphic artist ISO50) recently compiled a personal selection of post-club tracks for the ‘Back to Mine’ series, a two decades long enterprise which invites the curator to recalibrate memories and thematically transport the party-goer to new territories and think-zones.

Arguably this act of curation can help to enact a process of recreation, reviving recollections and prompting reanalysis upon both recent and remote pasts. With this in mind, Tycho has decided to return to his 2011 album ‘Dive’.

‘Dive’ is ten surround-scapes whose titles upon first ‘reading’ could easily cause the recipient to presume this is all New Age bubblebath-bliss, shallow soak-folktronica, all numbient-soapwash. Not that there’s anything particularly wrong with such backdrops, everyone needs fog-clearing fixes, but, too often it can come across as not much more than mindless-muzak, widespread wallpaper mache intent on manipulating consumerist desires.

‘Dive’ however urges the listener to feel, think and react in more enriching ways, a call to ignore the tentacles of temptation and distraction, to detach from the everyday grind and immerse within a world of unwind.

Blending (p)lush electronica with deep emotions overall it’s a very ‘human’, warm sounding album amidst these increasingly anti-human times, a guiding light to be led free of the psychic overload.

Opener, the mellow ‘A Walk’ strolls in, perambulates past, plods along pleasantly, then picks up the pace and canters to a calm climax. *inhale*

‘Ascension’ oozes the feeling of being cut loose in the space-place-time continuum, floating upwards, moving towards, above and beyond. *exhale*

‘Melanie’ embodies the ‘prog’* in progressive, it could easily be a 1970s theme tune to a post-apocalyptic series, melancholic and optimistic at the same time. Yes*, it’s like that *coughs*

The closing ‘Elegy’ epitomises its etymology, a pause to reflect, a lament to what’s passed/past, a time to take stock and … *prevail*