Tycho- Epoch

Epoch
Tycho
Ghostly International 2016

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David Longstreth, front man of established indie-rockers Dirty Projectors, raised a question last week that elicited fractious responses from fellow musicians and critics alike. He wondered, thinking in retrospect of the musically fertile, cutting-edge 1990s, whether music must necessarily contain the ambition to blaze new trails- to do something that hasn’t been done before- to be considered great. While drastic, his question is quite relevant and should be given its due consideration. In fact, it tackles a quandary that many musicians face, particularly after achieving moderate success. To continue honing in on this area of skill and comfort, or push the envelope to conquer a different niche or technique? The answers are typically far from straightforward.

While its new album came months before this discussion was brought to the forefront, Tycho- Scott Hansen’s musical project turned full band- offers a passionate response. Epoch, the third record of a trilogy that follows 2012’s Dive and 2014’s Awake, strikes a delicate balance between diversified sounds and the familiarity of atmospheric electronics that have accompanied Hansen’s past offerings. In terms of its greatness, it takes no background knowledge of the group to realize that originality isn’t the intended focus of its work, nor the benchmark for its quality, as Longstreth might require. Rather, Tycho is about feeling. It’s a projection of Hansen’s feelings, but it, more importantly, evokes feeling from the listener. Epoch’s dreamy melodies, punchy guitar and smooth bass surround eleven mystical tracks; mirroring themes of its predecessors, all while exhibiting unquestionable refinement.

Consistent throughout Tycho’s various ideations has been its accessibility to listeners- perhaps its best quality. Regardless of whether it’s called chill wave, electronic rock, or ambient (Hansen couldn’t care less), what makes it stand out is an endearing focus on simplicity, and this holds truer for the new record than of any before it. Add to it the shapeshifting of songs in and out of frenetically-paced percussion and languid soundscapes, and you get a fitting culmination of three successive attempts to get “it” right-. “It” is the intentionally ambiguous creation that manages to illuminate both the spectacular and mundane. Unique to the overall sound of this record is a noticeable advancement of the “band” identity, something that expectedly took time to develop from Tycho’s solo-bedroom-project roots. Live guitar player and co-producer Zac Brown excels with his sparse, tasteful, psychedelic picking, and dynamic rhythms pair gracefully with the group’s layered sounds. The growing awareness breeds expectedly sunny and more complicated melodies by Hansen, as well as sporadic changes of pace between and within tracks.  

Opening song “Glider” encompasses the collection of sameness and variation that fills the entire record. Interweaving synthesizer patterns and single-note riffs swirl as momentum builds, and the song explodes into swelling bliss. A-side standouts “Horizon” and “Epoch” showcase similar displays of brilliance; a mastery of repetition urges the listener to become lost, either in the song or outside of it in the surroundings. With careful listening, Hansen’s personal narrative that accompanies the album (hint: the word epoch literally is a reference to a specific point or period in time) is evident. He doesn’t look backwards simply for the nostalgia, and the music he makes certainly serves as a reflection. The end goal is to consider the past- through memories, or mistakes or something similar- and present it in a new way.

 On the B-side, tracks like “Division” and “Rings” allude to elements as far as the decade-old Past is Prologue, but thankfully don’t sound dated. As is typical of almost any Tycho output, the melodies are bright and uplifting, calm but decisive, organized and full of life. “Fields,” the final song on the record, fulfills the role that “Elegy” and “Plains” did on the two albums before it; quiet and delicate, the rare appearances of guitar are heavily drenched in reverb, proceeding slowly and careful into the calmed consciousness of the listener.

Curiously lacking from the album, upon completion, is a clear meaning to the spacey, rewarding completion of another beautiful Tycho record. There’s no obvious take home message, and it’s intentional. While, to Hansen, the album represents an opportunity to convey ideas from a time from the past in a new, refreshing light, that experience is highly individual. His goal, which is either admirably bold or highly questionable, is to not clutter his songwriting and production process with a cohesive meaning for the listener to gather. In other words, it’s intended to mean whatever you want it to.  The dangers of such a strategy are obvious- make music without a firm meaning, and it lacks substance to the point where listeners can’t relate. The upside, which Hansen certainly taps into, is a widely accessible, overly personal listening experience, and one that is consistently rewarding.

When David Longstreth furrowed his proverbial eyebrows on Instagram as he thought about what characteristics of music amount to lasting quality, it was Robin Pecknold of Fleet Foxes who leapt to the defense of the many bands and artists that felt unfairly criticized for making unoriginal records. With such a controversial comment, the musical community can almost thank Longstreth for providing an opportunity to consider what it is that music contains or evokes that holds the most value to us, the consumer of ideas and sounds. For Tycho, it’s an unwavering attempt to unlock feelings and emotions. The warm instrumentals that fill the most recent Epoch belong equally in the car while sitting in traffic or peering outwardly high from the mountain tops. In truth, its style is both simplistic and sophisticated, the ultimate compliment for an artist whose intense focus welcomes the scarcity of only the essentials above all else.