No Filler Music Podcast - No Filler Rewind: The Hypnagogic Bliss of Tycho's Dive

Episode Date: February 24, 2020

On this week's episode, we open up the No Filler vault with a playback of our 3rd episode, a look at Tycho's second studio album Dive. The perfect blend of IDM, chillwave, and downtempo, Scott Hansen creates a lush and sun-dappled soundscape on this record that perfectly matches the imagery he creates under his graphic design moniker ISO50. Also featured on this episode is our very first discussion of the hypnagogic pop, and how Tycho, better than most artists who attempt it, explores cultural memory and nostalgia through is work. Tracklist Tycho - Dive Mr. Twin Sister - Lady Daydream Clientele - Everything You See Tonight Is Different From Itself Tycho - Hours Tycho - Adrift Little Dragon - Feathers This show is part of the Pantheon Podcast network. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Boarding for flight 246 to Toronto is delayed 50 minutes. Ugh, what? Sounds like Ojo time. Play Ojo? Great idea. Feel the fun with all the latest slots in live casino games and with no wagering requirements. What you win is yours to keep groovy. Hey, I won! Feel the fun!

The meeting will begin when passenger Fisher is done celebrating. 19 plus Ontario only. Please play responsibly concerned by your gambling or that if someone close, you call 1-8665-3-3-1-2-60 or visit comex Ontario.ca. With Amex Platinum, you have access to over 1,400 airport lounges worldwide. So your experience before takeoff is a taste of what's to come. That's the powerful backing of Amex. Conditions apply. This episode is brought to you by Peloton. A new era of fitness is here.

Introducing the new Peloton Cross Training Tread Plus, powered by Peloton IQ. Built for breakthroughs with personalized workout plans, real-time insights, and endless ways to move. Lift with confidence, while Peloton IQ counts reps, corrects form, and tracks your progress. Let yourself run,

lift, flow, and go. Explore the new Peloton cross-training treadplus at OnePeloton.ca. That cold case you're listening to? Nasty stuff. But you know what else is a crime? Missing even a moment of whatever you're doing to go on a drink run.

Luckily, there's Drizzly, the number one app for alcohol delivery. With Drizley, you can compare prices on the biggest selection of beer, wine, and spirits, then get them delivered in under 60 minutes. So download the Drizley app or go to Drsley.com. That's D-R-I-Z-L-Y.com today. And welcome to No Filler, the music podcast dedicated to sharing the often overlooked hidden gems that fill the space between the singles on our favorite records. And today we are going back in time to episode number three. where we talked about Tycho's 2011 record dive.

You see what had happened was. Here's the thing. Q and I recorded an episode on an electronic producer that goes by hiatus and his 2013 record Parklands. But overall, we just decided that the episode wasn't up to our standards, I guess. We weren't happy with it. And to be honest with you, the record, I don't know, it just didn't belong. It didn't belong in our stint of electronic episodes that we're trying to keep to for the month of February. And we had name-dropped the Tyco episode a couple times the last few episodes as well.

And honestly, we've talked about this episode quite a bit. We reference it all the time. And like I said, this is episode number three. So a lot of you probably haven't gone back this far enough and may never go back this far enough in our back catalog. If you listen to us on the Pantheon podcast network, this episode isn't even in the feed. So we thought it'd be a good idea to bring it back to life, resurrect it a little bit. The episode still holds up.

You can tell that we're a little green. You know, this is, like I said, a third episode. So we were still trying to figure things out. But overall, the content is pretty solid. The music is great. Tyco is one of the great ambient chill wave IDM musicians of all time. And this record is pretty solid. All right.

So without further ado, here is our episode on Tyco and his 2011 record dive. And welcome to No Filler. A music podcast dedicated to sharing the often overlooked hidden jims that filles the space between the singles on our favorite records. In each episode, we'll dive into a little history of the artist and the album of choice with snippets from interviews and concerts, as well as music from the album itself. My name is Travis, and with me as always is my brother, Quentin. Q, how's it, how's it going up there in Seattle? Or should I say, it's, uh, Renton. Renton, you say? Renton, Washington. Yeah, that's all right. We're,

Approaching the super long winter nights where the sun sets at like 4.30. Still not used to it. Lived up here for three years. It's still bizarre. So it gets dark at like five. The earliest that the sun sets is 4.30. So it will be dark by then. And then when you wake up, it's still dark.

Yeah. See, that's different. Because it gets dark in Texas around 5.30-ish. The sun starts to set. But like the sun is not. is shining bright by the time I wake up at, you know, eight. Yeah. Yep.

But you wake up a little bit earlier than me, don't I? What? Scrant's that. Scrantz that. Scrantz that. No, I wake up around like 730 or so. Mm. Mm-hmm.

But guess what? Two-hour time difference, bro. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. What? All right. Okay.

Okay. So today we are talking about Tycho's second studio album, Dive. And I think it's safe to say that Tyco is one of my favorite electronic musicians. Definitely my favorite ambient chill wave musician. That's what he is sometimes classified as. and I think you would say the same, right, Q? Ambient chill wave, yeah. Well, as far as him being one of your favorite electronic musicians. Absolutely. Yeah. Especially, yeah, in this category of electronic music. Yeah.

Absolutely. I mean, I think there are a lot of musicians out there that have his sound, like that fall under that category. But like he's, he does it. better than anyone, I think. I think so too. What I like about his music is just how seamlessly or how flawlessly he combines elements of electronic and analog, you know, or acoustic instruments. He does it so well. And we're going to get into that.

We're going to get into that. We're going to dive into the whole thing here. But first. We're going to dive into dive. We're going to dive. Yeah. Yeah. But before we dive, before we climb up on that diving board.

Oh, my God. Would you say that we're going to dive head first? Oh, yeah. What? No, I didn't say that. But yeah, we are. But would you say that? Sure.

I would say that. You know, maybe we should also say that this is our second time recording this episode, Q. Now, why is that? Don't spill the beans. Why is that, Q? I want you to tell me why. All right. I'll share.

So I'm the one that pieces together the podcasts. After we record them, I listen back, make sure all the levels are right and, you know, take out the parts where we both sound like a-holes. And this one. Go ahead. Go ahead. Keep going on. Yeah. This episode, it was a real snooze fest, the one that we recorded a couple nights ago.

Yeah. Well, no. See. And by nights, I mean, in the morning. Exactly. That was the mistake. We're not going to record in the morning anymore. We've learned from our mistakes.

I've always been overnight. I sat down with my cup of Joe and then we press record. The irony. So the caffeine didn't do its job yet. Yeah. The irony here is that I have a cup of coffee that I'm working on right now because I always drink coffee at night. Say what you will about that. I'm not saying a damn thing, brother.

But yeah. you got a brusky that you're working on. I've got my Joe that I'm working on. I've always been more of a night owl, so, you know, we're going to bring the energy here. You know why you're a night owl, brother? Why?

Because you drink coffee at night. No, dude. Coffee doesn't affect me like that. Okay. Trust me on that. All right. All right. So that was a roundabout way of getting to our,

what was the term I used? house, house cleaning, housekeeping. We got to do some housekeeping here. What kind of housekeeping, Travis? What kind of housekeeping, Travis? I got a new segment for you. It's going to be called, don't judge me. Or don't judge us.

Basically, if we said something that was incorrect in the previous episode, I want to take a moment to correct it in the beginning of the next episode. you know, just so we don't misinform our listeners. And, you know, because, you know, why are you going to... It's good to own up to your mistake. Yeah, get it'll own up to it. And if I say, dude, if I say something like, the mistakes I'm calling out here were just, like, I misspoke, you know what I mean?

But like, if I say something that's wrong and a listener tells me otherwise, like, that's great, man. That's what I want. We need that. I want to learn. And, you know, especially on, on things when it comes to to music, you know.

Yeah, we're new to this, everyone, okay? We're just stepping out into the podcasting world. We're learning some things, right? Just got the training wheels fixed. We don't have our land legs. We don't have our land legs. We're on our land legs, yeah. So two retractions that I want to make.

Number one. Just one. We list, no, we've got, I've got two here. The first one being, we listed off like the, five pack, this five pack of grunge bands that were like the quintessential grunge albums to listen to. And, you know, we said that all of these bands were from Seattle. That was incorrect. Stone Temple Pilots, one of the bands we mentioned, is from San Diego, California, not Seattle. So,

yeah, I feel. There you go. I feel the shame. There you go. Yeah, yeah, I should have caught that. Yeah. Second mistake. So, but hey, don't judge us, you know. We make mistakes sometimes. We're humans. Don't judge me. You know, I wasn't even, I think I was relatively sure that the other four were from Seattle. And I just kind of assumed that Stone Tip of Pilots must be from Seattle also. But boy, was I wrong. Second retraction. Our outro track was Black Sabbath into the void. And I'm, mistakenly said that that song was widely considered to be the spawn of

Doom Metal, which is a sort of a newer genre. What I meant to say, of course, is that that song spawned Doom Metal. So. Yeah, that's just, you just misspoke, man. Exactly.

But you know what? I want to set the record straight. So that track is considered to be sort of like you know the inspiration for for that's more slow melodic uh doom metal that's kind of caught on recently so anyway that's that housekeeping aside let's move on to uh a more beloved segment cue our weekly uh what you heard uh so what you've been listening to what you heard so in other words what else have we been listening to because i'm not going to mention the band that i mentioned two days ago even though no one's going to hear that do why don't you name drop them though just to have it out there

so the first time i recorded this you you mentioned a band called sunflower bean sunflower bean pick for this recording but we should put them out there just so they can get some exposure because i yeah sunflower bean is really great yeah since we recorded that i went through and listened to um to to their full-length album and i fell in love with it instantly so yeah dude let's put that out there it's something about so yeah so yeah so sunflower being uh and now that i can now i've thought about it a little bit more i'd say they're the perfect mix of like slater kinney punk with like fleetwood mac vibes yeah that's interesting because like there are moments especially uh the the the the male vocalist like he'll yeah he'll be he'll be screaming kind of kind of

punk rockish you know well if you know slater kinney that's a that's a that's an girl punk band from Olympia. And yeah, they have those moments. Yeah, I've heard of them. Yeah. They're great. Yeah.

So their full-length album, it came out last year. It's called Human Ceremony. Definitely check it out. It's worth at least two listens. Yeah, it's solid all the way through. Yeah. So,

but I'll say, so another band that I've been listening to a lot this week, was a band that we listen to quite a bit. Well, a few years ago. I'm not supposed to know. Sorry. What?

No, you don't know this, dude. You don't know how I'm going to say. I saw it on your screen, man. Stop looking at my screen. But, you know, whatever. Yeah. So they go by Mr. Twin Sister now.

They used to be called Twin Sister. It's a band out of New York. They've been around since like 2008 or so. They're just another one of those dreamy garage pop bands. because God damn it, if I'm not on a binge of this style of music, I've been listening to a lot of bands like this.

There's something special, though, dude. They're like, they're a cut above, I think. They're one of my favorite acts to come out in the last 10 years, for sure. And that goes for their show, too. That was such a great. Man, I mean, that show, so they weren't even the headliners for that show. Don't mention the band that we're headlining. But they blew them out of the water, dude.

Oh, absolutely. Yeah, they are, they're the real deal for sure. But this is, this, Hugh, this is scary. You know why? No. Because I listened to, um, I was listening to twin sister yesterday. It's almost like we're twin brothers. I mean, seriously though.

Like, we didn't, we didn't, we didn't mention twin sister in the last, in the last recording of this, did we? No, I haven't talked about twin sister with you in a long time. so it's almost like we're twin brothers a couple of a couple of twin brothers were listening to twin sister yesterday that sounds like the start of like a bad joke or something yeah but it's true i was i was listening to um to to to their mr twin sister self-titled album i actually haven't listened to that is it good you hold on a minute you've never listened to it nope do are you serious right now dead serious oh my god God, you've got to listen to it, man.

Your, what you heard is kind of turning into me telling you to listen to something. Yeah, but I'm about to tell you what, what Jeff heard. Which was, I listened, I revisited their EP from, oh shit, I don't remember when this came out.

2010, 2010, 2010, thanks, bro. It's called Color Your Life. And this was before they changed their name to Mr. Twin sister. Yeah. It's a sixth track EP. And we also decided that we're going to just, we're going to play a small clip from these artists that we've been listening to lately. I'm going to play track two from Color Your Life. It's called Lady Daydream. And I, I love this song so much. Yeah, it's good, man. It's solid. That's probably my favorite off the record as well.

And you know what? I'm going to say they're in the same vein as Sunflower Beam. Yeah, I would agree with that. Especially on their second album, In Heaven. It's that. And this was another one of the, it was another one of those trends that had surfaced over the last several years where there's almost like two lead, like frontmen.

front women. It's a male, female duo. It's like a duet, but a lot of times they bounce back and forth with their singing. Lady Daydream does that. Twin Sister does that. Sunflower Bean does that a lot and they do it really, really well. Especially, and I should mention this again, Sunflower Beans just released a new single called I Was a Fool and it's fantastic. and they do that really well in that song. Anyways, here is just a little bit of Lady Daydream by Mr. Twin Sister.

So good, man. They had such a great presence on stage. Yes. Like I said, they're the real deal, dude. As far as their musicianship, their songwriting, that's your homework for this week. You've got to listen to Mr. Twin Sister, the self-titled album. It is different, dude.

And like the first track, sensitive to me, has a baseline and just an overall like melody kind of vibe as like a chaday and like a geno Vanelli and a like a chatee and a like a geno Vanelli in a shoday track put together. What? Yes. It is awesome, dude. Now my interest levels, they're getting peaked. Question for you, bro. Do you know why they change their name? Yeah, I do. Are you asking me because you don't know? Yeah, I don't know.

Well, did you, so I wrote an article on this. I was going to save all of this for whenever we get around to doing an episode on them because we will. Oh, we're going to do an episode on twin sister? Sure, man. And probably on this Mr. Twin Sister album. All right, then. Because there's, yeah, there's an interesting story on, on what happened to them. Okay, so then, Travis, what you heard this week, brother? All right, well, I'm going to go. Yeah, well, hang on, dude. Can I just guess what you're going to say? Yeah.

Are you going to say clientele? Yes, you are. You're correct. How did I know? Because, you know, I'm sticking with it. Because I got the record showed up yesterday, so I just listened to it all. the way through. How is it?

And I just, it's great, man. Yeah. If you're not familiar with them, they're this, I guess they're, they're kind of classified as psychedelic, but it's not, it's not psychedelic in the sense of like a team Impala or, you know, the temples or, yeah, or, unknown mortal orchestra, right? it's not like that psychedelic I would put them in the 60s pop

Yes zombies kind of Yeah but yeah Like Peter Bjorn and John Yeah maybe that's just because He sings with an English accent

Well it's more than that Yeah Yeah you're right But anyway This new album It's called Music for the Age of Miracles came on a couple months back. Again, like his guitar playing is really kind of unique.

It's got a lot of a lot of tremolo, which you don't hear used very often, but he does it. It's almost like his signature, and it's, you know, I don't know if there's much of that on this new album, but on their, they're kind of their second, their big release that they had was Strange Geometry. tree came out um well when did it come out came out in 2005 which is probably around the time that we

saw them 2005 which is crazy i never saw them thanks for inserting me into your memory dude sorry dude i just figured that you would have been there that was uh i saw them open for spoon um and that was a great show. So yeah, the clientele, he's got, he also has a very unique voice. It's kind of breathy. Yeah, that's a good way to describe it.

Yeah, the songs are kind of dreamy. I wouldn't call them dream pop or whatever, but there's just a certain quality about the way he writes songs and I was happy to hear that. Here's the way that I, here's how I describe clientele. Okay. If I'm walking through,

a museum, maybe a modern art museum. And I got some earbuds, clientele. Yeah, all right. I can hear that. And what's funny is most of their album art features fine art on it, Q. Get the fuck out of here, dude. I'm not messing with you. Get out of here.

No. Are you serious? No, I'm serious. I'm not messing with you. Awesome. Yeah. So anyway, my song that we're going to play, it's called Everything You See Tonight Tonight is different from itself. Yeah, I like that a lot. That was really cool.

Yeah, so, you know, kind of Bell and Sebastian a little bit. They got kind of that vibe going on. Absolutely. It's all right. So I think it's about time we're talking about Tyco. I agree. So yeah, I guess just real quick, those songs will be mentioned on the track list on the show notes page for this episode on our website and old filler podcast.com and they will make their way onto the Spotify playlist that we compile for this podcast. You can see that as well on the website. So all right. So let's talk about Tyco. And I think before we talk about the album, we need to talk about the man behind Tycho, Scott Hansen. The myth. The legend.

Yeah. Really. So Scott Hansen is Tyco. It started out as what he called, he called it a laptop project. Right. Just more like a hobby because he already had a career as a. Yeah. So he has a graphic designer.

So Scott Hanson is, and still is, a very talented graphic designer. He had, you know, some pretty big clients that he was working on, like he did some stuff for Adobe. And he does all of the graphic art for his concert posters, his album artwork. The visuals that you see, if you see him live, it's all him. Like he does all of it. So, you know, I think that's pretty special. Yeah. You know, it makes him pretty unique.

Yeah. Yeah. And I think that adds a whole other level to his life performances because you're, everything that you're witnessing is all Scott Hanson. Yeah. It's all his creation. So it's all very cohesive and like everything's done with like a purpose behind it as far as like his brand, you know, as it were.

But yeah, because he was trained. in graphic design and like branding and stuff like you know it brings it all to to the tycho project which is really he even talks about he approaches music like he approaches art and visuals you know so yeah um so the the the origin story as it were for tyco is that he had gotten in some sort of an accident and was stuck at home. He took like a leave of absence to recover from his job. And so he was basically at home recovering. And during that time, he, you know, started to focus more on this little side project, the music project. And, you know, I gave him enough time to, like, seriously sit down and try to, try to, you know, make some music. And it's then that he realizes that,

oh, I can actually compose, you know, full-length songs here. So he put together some songs, released an EP. He was called The Science of Patterns. And, you know, that was really the moment when he was like, hey, I can actually make something out of this, you know. And so. Yes. And let's mention that this was 15 years ago, at least,

when he started doing this stuff. Because science of patterns came out in 2002. And I haven't actually listened to it in, of the music from that, have you? Is it easily accessible? It's not on Spotify, but you can find it. I'm curious. Yeah, I was looking at the track list

like a couple days ago. And yeah, I remember listening to all that stuff. I recognize the album cover too. Yeah, and of course, you're looking at a Scott Hanson piece of graphic art there when you look at that cover. Yeah, human condition. Dream is memory.

Yeah, I don't know any of this. Yeah, I remember listening to it, but it's, I couldn't tell you how they sound. It's been years. But this was 15 years ago, this was definitely just Scott Hanson with a laptop. Oh, yeah. And like a digital audio software program. Yeah, probably just a laptop and maybe like a MIDI keyboard or something. Yeah.

But, yeah, so, you know, the laptop project, era of Tycho. I think lasted through the release of Pastus Prolog, which was his first major release came out in 2006. That's when I was probably introduced to him,

to him, and his music. And then in between Pastus Prolog and Dive, there's about a five-year gap there. And he spent that whole time working on bits and pieces of dive. He even said so that this was,

you know, this album took six years to make. And after, I think dive was the first, the first album where he, it was his full-time gig, you know what I mean? As far as like, he went into it with the full intention of like, I'm going to turn this into my full-time job. The graphic design will just be a side thing now.

So. And that's a huge leap to take, you know? Yeah. Yeah. You always hear the whole starving artist thing. I mean, absolutely. That's you're really taking a risk if you're going to devote your life to making music or making art of some kind. Right.

It's a huge risk. Yeah, definitely. So anyway, let's talk about his sound. You've got an interview where he kind of describes his approach to, his digital effects, right? So yeah, he's got a really unique sound. There's almost no mistaking a Tycho song. It's this warmth and texture that he creates.

To him, the way he describes it, and I'm pulling this from an interview that he did on sound toys. which is a website that, it's like a website for gear nerds, for music gear nerds. And he said that a lot of, the way he approaches music, he likes to make music similar to the kind of music that he grew up listening to. And I think this would be a good time to mention the genre or subcategory of electronic pop music. that he kind of falls into. It's a term I hadn't heard before

and I thought it was pretty interesting the definition of it. It's a term called hypnagogic pop. Hypnagogic pop. Hypnagogic pop. Hypnagogic pop also known as chill wave or glowfy,

another term I hadn't heard before. So those are both, they both fall under the umbrella. Yep. And this is a 21st century style of pop music or general musical approach which explores elements of cultural memory and nostalgia by drawing on the music popular entertainment and recording technology of past decades particularly the 1980s that's i always think it's interesting what like what makes something

what makes music nostalgic what makes brand new music like feel nostalgic you know what I mean because obviously if you for me if I'm if I play a video game that I played as a kid

that's nostalgia right yeah but if I listen to a title song listen to the soundtrack from that video game absolutely dude and that's another thing nothing to me at least Nothing brings me back to a time period or to a specific moment in my life like music does.

I can't hear one, two, three by Gloria Estefan without thinking of being in our din from our childhood home watching that concert that on the VHS that dad recorded of the Gloria Astafon. They recorded from TV concert. Yeah, whatever it was. Yeah, and same with like, you know, Sonic and Hedhog. Same with Inima of the State by Blinkwin 82. Yeah. I was listening to that earlier this week too, dude. Get out of here.

Yeah. Because I'm getting excited and preparing for the eventual episode that we do on Blink 282. But anyway, nothing brings me back to a moment in time like music does. So when I listen to Tyco, a brand new Tyco song that I've never heard before, I feel the same feeling, you know what I mean? But it's not like I heard that song when I was five, you know? It's interesting how he can do that because... That's the hypnagogic...

Yeah. ...term that you're talking about, where it's like... It's bits and pieces from... Did you say the cultural memory? Yeah. Yeah. The cultural memory and nostalgia. It's interesting because...

you know, although we, we may have all had different experiences that we associate with that sound, whatever that particular sound is, like it makes us nostalgic because it's not, it's, it's a, it's a retro sound, but it's, um, it's brand new, you know. So, so yeah, so he falls under the hypnagogic, uh, nostalgic, uh, nostalgic, uh, nostalgia, I guess subcategory of electronic music. Chillwave is a good word to use. But he also uses a lot of kind of down tempo. Like his beats, I would say, are more down tempo than anything.

Like he does a really good job with the drum beats that he uses in his songs, which I think are a huge part of what makes his music stand out, you know? Yeah. Because he does a great job with the beats, the drumming. So, yeah. So, hey, before we talk more about Scott Hansen and his sound and all that, let's go ahead and play a track, shall we? Yeah, that sounds good. So that everyone can hear kind of what we're talking about here.

All right. So the first track that we're going to play is called ours, and it's track number two. And we've got two clips. I think the first one is just kind of the beginning of the song. So how do you play that cue? Yeah, yeah. So, okay. So here's clip number one.

This is track number two. It's called H-O-U-R-S. So I feel like if there was a Tyco 101 course that you could take at like a community college, that's the song they would play. Yeah, you're right. It's like the signature. That sums up his sound. Yes.

The vibes that he's going for. That sums it up right there. Yeah. And yeah, that's that sound. that main riff, I guess, that's being played, that is the Tycho sound that he's, you know, cultivated because I don't think we mentioned it yet, but there's that, you know, he mentioned in an interview that he treats his effects like instruments. In other words, like once he tweaks, do we want to play the clip or do we just kind of similar? Yeah, dude, let's play that clip,

man. All right, yeah, let's let's let, let's let Mr. Scott Hansen tell us about how he approaches effects. Yeah, so here's a, here's a clip from an interview from that, that same website, the same publication called Sound Toys. And this is regarding the fact that he literally has a limitless amount of effects and ways to approach making music with these digital audio programs. And the way that he approaches that, yeah, so here it is. I think, yeah, it was. I think, yeah, it was. a problem at one point I think I was in this mode of just like I have to try everything and and slowly I found a set of of tools that I was really comfortable with and and I realized you know if there's any even if there's some subtle difference or even if

something I know is superior in some small way I I'll just stick with what I what I have because I feel like there is something to being limited and and I think when I started out there weren't any of these options I didn't even and, you know, I started out just using hardware, and I think there was something about that that that I missed. And so these days I try to, like, just say, you know, pretend like this is real gear. All the, my favorite software, pretend like that's a piece of hardware that I own, and that's what I have, and that's what I'm going to use. And I try to try to keep it pretty tight. But that being said, I'm always, it's, you know, always looking for new stuff if somebody's coming out with something interesting

that does something better or improves the workflow. Yeah, I love that. It really is true. For me as a drummer, too, sometimes I'll purposely remove a piece from my kit to force myself to be more creative. And I think that's what he's kind of part of what he's saying here. He'll purposely limit himself and treat these effects like their physical instruments that he owns so that there's not limitless possibilities. and it does force you to be more creative. Yeah, well, kind of in the same, along the same vein. Kea, have you seen the documentary? It might get loud?

I don't think so. So it's Jack White of White Stripes. Oh. Does the first scene, is that like he's sitting down with fucking Edge from YouTube? Yeah, well, yeah. It's Edge from YouTube. YouTube. Ed's from YouTube. Yeah.

Jimmy Page from Zeppelin and Jack White from White Stripes. They basically get in a room and talk about their approach to guitar playing, their history, and then they do these jam sessions. He talks about, so Jack White is famous for playing that plastic red guitar that he got out of a Macy. The JCPenney guitar, right? Yeah, yeah, that's right. J.C. Piner and Macy's catalog. Or C.

Anyway, he talks about how like, He, you know, he doesn't want to just buy a new guitar because with this instrument, it's like a struggle, you know, and he likes the struggle of having to fight it. That's what he said. You know, he got to fight it to make it sound the way you want it to sound. You know what I mean? And it contributes to the, to his sound, you know, especially white stripes, the gritty, you know, blues rock that he does so well. Yeah, he does it better than anyone alive right now. If he were to switch guitars, I don't think Elephant or some of those other albums would have sounded the same.

Absolutely, they wouldn't have. So anyway, to tie it back to Tyco, I think that's cool that he does that. You know what I mean? Because, yeah, like he said, you know, even if this new piece of software or whatever is superior, it might be superior, but it would probably sound different. It probably wouldn't be the Tycho, the signature Tyco sound. You know what I mean? Right. Like the imperfections that might come from whatever piece of software he's currently using,

that's what makes the type of sound. Yeah, he had said in another interview that the effect that he applies on his baselines, it's the exact same effect he's used for years and he doesn't mess with it at all. Yeah. I mean, that's why his music has sounded so consistent for years. So we should play the second clip because we do have a second clip from that song. And there's something really cool that happens in this clip. It's kind of a, it almost is like a tempo change, maybe a little bit.

The drums, there's a few more layers that get added to the drum track that it's really cool. It's kind of a cascading type thing going on. So anyway, let's play that. This is the second, another clip from ours, drag number two on dive. Yeah, so he just does a great job. job with the drums, man. I love it. Yeah.

Yeah, that whole clip, that's just ear candy, man. You know? Did you say it's irritating? No, no. Ear candy. Ear candy, okay. Yeah, it's definitely. It's just delightful.

It's just great. It's great. And again, like you mentioned earlier, like, if we were to play a, if you were to take a Tyco 101, like this would be like lesson number one. Yeah. Day one of the class. Day one, here's the Tyco sound. Yeah.

Get familiar with it. Yeah. So anyway. So let's also mention now that for this album, this is the first time he started working with some outside musicians. Yes. Specifically, a guitar player by the name of Zach Brown. Yeah.

He started working with him during the recording process. And then after that, for that tour, for the tour for dive, he toured with Zach Brown, and then he brought in drummer Rory O'Connor to play live drums for him for this tour. And I feel like there might be some conflicting facts, or maybe we just haven't read it correctly,

but I'm not 100% sure if he actually sat down in the studio with Scott and Zach to make this album or not. But he toured with them for this album. And since then, now they're basically a trio. It's a three-piece band.

It's Scott Hansen, Zach Brown, and Rory O'Connor. That's essentially Tyco now. Yeah, so 2011 dive comes out. 2014, I believe they recorded as the trio. That was Awake, came on 2014.

And then he had a release in 2016 called Epoch. And I think they approached that album. That was the first album where it was less about the effects and more about the instrumentation. Even more so than awake. Yeah. Because, yeah, because Scott mentions in a little interview segment during a K-E-X-P, which is, it's a public radio station up here in Seattle. It's an awesome public radio station, really good music.

I think everybody knows about K-E-X-P, man. I knew about that before you moved up to Washington. Yeah, but there's a great Tyco performance that they did in 2014 on K-E-X-P, and they interviewed them in-between songs. And he said that for the... album Awake after, you know, touring with these guys and working with Zach, they wanted to kind of capture the sound that they were made on the road. They wanted to capture that on record. So Awake was the first record that they did as a band. Yeah. And since then, yeah, since then he doesn't even really consider Tyco just, you know,

just him anymore. Yeah, I think it's a, I think. it's also like a process of like discovery for scott because for a dive that's the first time he started to incorporate a guitar like an actual guitar in his music so i think he's just you know it's kind of interesting he's going from his laptop project to like trying to like tying in all these live instruments and and and putting it into like the tycho sound you know what i mean and it works so well man it works so well like like it really is um an evolution of like of of the tycho sound and but but at the same time it it all sounds so cohesive you know but yeah yeah so it's cool so anyway uh let's move on to the final pick we're only

going with two tracks today but um this song it's called a drift it's track number eight you may have recognized the song separate from Dive if you're a Tyco fan that is because it was released as a single it's interesting so so this is no filler we try not to talk about singles album singles we try to talk about the

more obscure tracks in between the singles so this is kind of weird because it came out it was released in 2008 as a single to the pastus prologue era of Tyco. And it was the A side to a single that had From Home on it as the B side. And From Home is track one of Pastest Prolog, but a drift is not on Pastus Prolog. So usually with singles, you know, the B side is the track that, that perhaps didn't show up on the record,

while the A side is either a single or some other track off the record. So it's kind of weird how that worked out. Yeah, it's weird that he didn't, that a drift didn't show up on Pastus Prolog. So he must have written it after Passus Prolog came out. Yeah.

You know what I mean? Yeah, that must have been it. Yeah, so this single must have come out after Pastest Prologue. Right. but like it's credited as a past as prologue single on Wikipedia. Right, right, right. So, and I had asked you this earlier,

because I was curious to know if he just completely re-recorded, like revisited a drift in 2011 when he made Dive and re-recorded it, you know, like with the help of Zach and maybe Rory to kind of change it up a little bit. but from what you're telling me, because you've actually listened to this 2008 single. Yeah. It's the same.

It's the same, yeah. I remember hearing Adrift on the single way before Dive came out. Yeah. And then I was, you know, it was cool to see that he threw it on there. And yeah, it's the same song. It's not, it wasn't. And, you know, he mentions in an interview that he did with this website called Ear Milk. There's actually quite a bit of info that we've kind of skipped over this time around Q.

That's all right. But he's saying that on Ear Milk, they asked him, how long did this album take you to make? He says that the dive took six years to make. Basically, as he describes it, he was just kind of screwing around making dive at first since he had another job. So he wasn't committed. he spent a year at the end really dedicated to putting it all together. He goes on to say that Adrift is the oldest track on the record, as far as like when he wrote it, when he recorded it.

And Eleggy is the last song that he wrote. So anyway. Which is also the last song on the record. Yeah, the last song. So it's kind of interesting. When you listen to Dive, you're listening to like six years of Tyco music on a album. And Adrift came out and he wrote and recorded Adrift in the era of Passus Prolog as far as like this was still just a laptop project for him. I think it, I mean, I think the song

fits so well with the rest of dive. Yeah. And let's play it. So we got a couple clips. Yeah. Let's go ahead and play it so they can hear what the fuck we're talking about, dude. So let's play it. But I'm just going to preface it by saying that this is my all-time favorite Tycho track. And that's significant, dude. Yeah, it is. So let's just play it and then I'll gush over it. So I think this song showcases the way he approaches drum beats and the way he puts them together in his songs. Because I love how in that intro, you hear.

this drumbeat and it sounds like it's being played in another room or like being played underwater or something you know it's it's it sounds far off yes and then when the song comes in in full force or whatever like a minute in or however long

there's a whole different drumbeat placed on top of that one and that one continues to play in the background and those two drum beats together make a whole other beat. And it just works so well. And I just love it. Yeah, that's great.

And that's interesting that you talked about the, how it sounds like it's in another room. Because like, I don't know, yeah, I think a lot of his sound, it sounds like it's filtered through something, right? Right. And there's an interview or a lecture that he gave at the Academy of Art.

where he's got this Q&A session and somebody asked him like, hey, can you describe, now this is about, he's talking about his graphic design. Like this is, he's not talking about Tyco. Right.

So this was a lecture, this is a graphic design lecture. Yeah, exactly. So somebody asked him about how he approaches color. And he talks about how whenever you're seeing, if you're seeing like red or something like that on one of his pieces,

you're not seeing red as it were. You're seeing red coming through like a color burn on multiply mode in Photoshop. Yeah. And we'll post a picture of this on, and the show notes for this episode. Just take a look at his album art for the science of patterns. Yeah. That's red, but it's not like, it's not red. there's something different about

well he uses a ton of layers adjustment layers and overlays and all that kind of stuff to get but but no it's along the same van as like filtered like everything is is like it looks like not I don't want to say weathered but like no yeah that I like gently

gently worn maybe gently used yeah but you're describing you're describing the Tyco sound man yeah that's And this is, it goes back to what I'm saying. Like, everything he does, he approaches it. Like, he's got a, he's got a, like, these, this look that he's, that this vibe that he's putting out.

It's just, it's him as an artist. That's why you see it in his, in his graphic art and you hear it in his music. You know what I mean? So anyway. Yeah. That weathered, nostalgic vibe. Yes, exactly. So, anyway, so as I was saying earlier, this is one of,

my favorite tycoed songs of all time. I think the the the drumbeat I love that drum beat dude. It's it's it's down tempo. And like as you were saying, it's got that interesting like it's two different drum beats basically. Yeah it's like yeah it's a layer you would have to have two drummers to pull this off to pull this off to pull this drumbeat off. right yeah so clip number two and this is so this is your favorite tycho song yeah clip number two takes those takes that drumbeat away yeah let me let me let me tee this up here go for it because this is not only is this my favorite tycho song but what you're going to hear in this next tycho clip this next clip from from a drift is my favorite moment in any

Tyco song. So, like he said, the drums are taken away. Basically, this is the bridge. And if you're a fan of down tempo or IDM, intelligent dance music, it's, you know, electronic music in general, it's all about layers, right? And to me, the difference between a good down tempo song and just a generic one that I'm going to forget after I hear it is how, how do you? is the artist, how do they layer and how do they add and take away and bring back those layers?

You know what I mean? Yeah, because with electronic music's particularly down tempo and IDM, like you said, it can become very formulaic to where you can almost predict what's going to happen. Like they're going to build up the song, they're going to add. these layers and then they're going to they're going to pull away they're going to take away the drumbeat and um if you listen to enough of it you can know you know when to expect it like okay they took it away and i guarantee you they're going to bring it back uh and it's probably going to be right here up there it is yep the difference between that kind of generic formulaic

and a really exceptional down-tembo artist and track is how they do it. how they bring it back, you know, and how they build the anticipation to bring it back. So anyway, this song, I think he brings the drums back in a way that really pays off, in my opinion, because there's a bunch of layers that he's adding back on when the drums get introduced back. And it really kind of, it's definitely the climax of the song for sure.

but anyway, let's just play it because I'm not going to describe it as well as the actual song but this is one of my favorite Tyco moments to date so without further ado Q you can't see me from here but I got goosebumps friend no I can see him dude

you can see him? Yeah I can see him that moment impacts me in the same way every time I hear it. When those drums come back, he's got sort of this swell of this other layer that he adds on, this synth pad thing that he's doing. Yeah, and he adds that acoustic, that super simple acoustic line.

Yeah, when those drums pull out. Yeah, that's right. He adds, yeah, see, again, you know, it's all about what are you taking away and what are you putting on as far as layers are controlled? And then when you bring back the layer that you took away, how are you bringing it back? And are you doing anything different when you bring it back? And like this song is a great example of like how impactful it can be when it's done right.

So that's it. I mean, I think those are two really good examples of kind of because ours is a little bit more. Upbeat. That's your favorite. I don't, yeah. I was using upbeat to describe an Allison Chain song last week. So whatever. You know what I'm saying?

No, yeah, absolutely. Ours is. Yeah. Yeah. It's more playful. Yeah, there you go. It's more playful. All right.

There we go. Is more of a, uh, is more subdued. Yeah. There you go. Brother. There we go. I'm using, I'm using new words to describe things here. playful and subdued.

Yeah, but you know what? Do not listen to this episode and then just not ever listen to Tycho again. You really have to listen to his albums in their entirety to really get a feel for what Scott Hansen can do. QR listeners are free to do whatever the hell they want, my friend. No, do as I say. but I agree you should at the very least listen to

Passus Prolog and and Dive I think those are Passus Prolog is a really exceptional debut album

I was just listening to it the other day it is it's different than Dive I think Dive you know it's when he started to take it more seriously um past his prologue there's moments of of the album that sound kind of you can tell this is a guy who's experimenting with this kind of stuff for the first time and it is it's his that's the uh it's the laptop project days of tyco yeah and if there's

great stuff on there if you're a gear nerd according to that interview that i read from sound toys you'll pick up on just how shittily recorded it was too apparently i would know that's funny because i sure as hell can't tell yeah i you know i probably have i probably have a repressing i think i have a repressing of it so it's probably like remaster yeah yeah yeah but anyways yeah exactly so it's a past this prologue is scott hanson fucking around on his laptop when he was bed yeah in a in a in a really in a really uh impressive way you know i mean i wish i could fuck him on my laptop like that. But it really is a great

album all the way through. I love. There's so many songs in there that I really adore. Yeah. And the song that that was paired up with A Drift as the single from Home is actually a really good it's paired up really well with the drift. That's probably why

he released them together. They're really, they sound really cohesive together. Those two tracks are really, really good. I think my favorite song from Pastest Pro is a circular re-education. Does that have sort of the vocal sample?

Yes. Yes. Is that the... Let me just play it on my earbirds. It's track seven. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's good. That sample almost sounds to me like that

Tosca song. What's that Tosca song on... Just save that for when we do a Tosca episode, man. Yeah. Well, yeah, we're going to do Suzuki at some point, which is a Tosca's a really exceptional down tempo band. Toska's our introduction to town tempo, man. And we, absolutely. And we discover down tempo together. And we'll get into that on that episode. Yeah, that'll be good because that was a, uh, that was a, uh, interesting moment in your life for sure. Absolutely. Those are good times. Yeah. That'll be, dude. That'll be. That'll be good.

It'll be a good... You saved my life, man. That's a good anecdote. Okay. Oh, yeah. You know what? It's a little anticlimatic, but that's all right. I'll take credit for that.

I'll take credit for that. Yeah, so that'll be a great episode, man. Yeah. All right. So, yeah, so that's it for this week. That is our take on Tyco's 2011 album dive. Yes. Go ahead and listen to it.

Because we barely scratch the surface. We only played you two songs there. I mean, so you heard a snippet of the title track, Dive. That was the song, the intro song that played us in. But yeah, you really got to hear it to get the full experience. And you shouldn't stop there. You should go back and listen to some of his earlier work and then listen to some of his new stuff.

And you can really see like how much he has grown as a musician, but how I'm pretty. impressive it is that he is really like like he he figured out what the tyco sound was back in in 2008 or earlier and has just slowly just perfected it and just built built on I mean how many how many bands can say that you know what I mean well let's go ahead and just preview what we're doing next because this is a band that I feel like kind of lost their way probably because of record label influence and all that jazz. So next week we're going to do an episode on Kings of Leon's debut album Youth and Young

Manhood, which came out in the early 2000s. I cannot wait. 2003. So we were, dude. We were sophomores in high school. Yeah. I can't believe that, man. Because this was not a band, this was not a band that we stumbled upon later.

Like, we were there at the origin. Yeah. So, yeah, we'll get into all that. Yeah, I'm really excited about that one. Yeah. I feel like at this point, everyone knows who Kings of Leon is. If you don't know who they are, you've heard one of their mega singles because there was. It's almost a guarantee that you've heard a Kings of Leon song by now.

Almost guaranteed. There was a time like 2010, 2008, where they had a couple of tracks that were blasted on the radio. They were everywhere. Every hit radio station was playing one of their singles. And for good reason, man. Those songs are great songs. They know how to write catchy songs, man. That's what makes them great.

But we fell in love with the different Kings of Leon. Yeah, that's all we're going to say. Say no more, brother. Exactly. Okay. Say no more. So. And I think we've.

already got an idea of what our bonus episode is going to be for Tyco. I won't say which song, but we're going to kind of dive into one of his remixes that he did. Maybe we'll pick another song to do with that. But yeah, that should be good. But yeah, our, yeah, Quentin is talking about our midweek little mini short episodes that we release that we're calling, we're going to start to call them side tracks. Basically, we just dive into one track, any track, as long as we can somehow tie it to the band or the album or the decade or the genre that we covered on the previous episode. Just a little something to get you through that midweek hump when you're like just itching for another no-filler podcast. That's right, Q.

All right. So yeah. That's a rap, friends. So at the end of every episode, we close out with a song from an artist that was. an inspiration to the band that we're talking about. It doesn't have to be the entire band. It could just be one of the members who mentioned them as an influence or what have you. So for Tyco, he mentioned in an interview,

he was asked, he was asked, what is your most favorite remix that you've made for somebody else? And this was in the interview that Ear Milk did. And he said that he, when he remixed Little Man for Little Dragon, he said that they're one of his favorite bands. And he went on to say when asked, is there an artist in any media that you would like to work with? He mentions Yuki Nejano, which is the lead singer of Little Dragon. He says he loves her voice. He's worked with her a couple times. So he wants to work with her again.

either way it's obvious that he loves these guys they probably influenced him in somewhere or another so we're going to play a track off of their here's when you're going to cut this up

to make it seem like I know when I'm talking I'm well it had to be at least 2009 when this album came out and let me tell you why I know this dude and this is trippy as fuck you know how Facebook gives you

here's what happened however many years ago today. Here's a memory that you should share. Yeah. Today, November 21st, eight years ago, I posted a Facebook status that said,

machine dreams. That's all that said. Wait a minute. Because I like to be obscure and shit back then. So, yeah, November 21st, 2009, my status for that day on Facebook was, the name of Little Dragons album Machine Dreams.

And when did that come out, Travis? Yeah, 2009, dude. That's, okay, that's crazy. You're telling me right now, dude, that eight years ago, to the day, you posted on your wall about machine dreams? That is correct. What in the world?

November 21st, 2009 at 1116 a.m. Holy shit. My Facebook status said machine dreams. Oh, my, there is a guy. God. What, dude? No, that's crazy because here we are, dude. Eight years later, we're about to play a clip

from Machine Dreams. Came out in 2009. It was their second full, full-length album by a band called Little Dragon. Scott Hanson loves him. He wants to work with them again. Yeah, I might be going to church on Sunday. Yeah.

That's a quinky dink, you know what I mean? If I've ever heard of one. I do know what you mean. So I would go out and buy a fucking lottery ticket if I were you, dude. Do they do that end up in Washington? Yeah, they do. And guess what? You guys are probably going to hear my fucking cat hitch meowing at the door saying,

Where's my food? And I'm going to say, brother, I already fed you earlier today. All right. I hear him. That's fine, dude, because we heard my cat in the last episode. So they're just making their weekly appearance. Well, he's not getting food. That's all I'm saying.

You know what? You got to lay down the law sometimes. So the song that we decided to play, to play our outro, it's a song called Feather off of Little Dragons' 2009 release Machine Dreams. That's my favorite song on the album. Yeah, it's a cool track, man. It's cool. I love the drumbeat. I love the vibes.

It's super mellow. Yeah, it's cool. It's cool. All right. So that'll do it. Um, look, look, uh, look in your, your podcast feeds, uh, midweek. Uh, we should have a, a sidetrack episode dropping for you. And, uh, that's it. Stay tuned. Next week, we'll do, uh, Kings of convenience. Oh, shit. Kings of Leon's. I was sorry, dude. I knew that was going to happen at least

once. Yeah. Yeah, we'll have to, we'll have to make sure we don't say that over and over again. Yeah. Yeah. But next way, we're going to cover Kings of Leon's debut album, Youth and Young Manhood. That's going to be a doozy. I can't wait for that. I can't wait. Yeah.

All right, here we go. We're going to play you out with Feather by Little Dragon. My name is Travis. And I'm quitting. See you next time. And there you have it. That was our look at Tyco's 2011 record dive. And next week, we're going to go back to night.

1997. We'll talk about Daft Punk's very first record, homework. And then we're going to have a sidetrack on Daft Punk the following week, and that'll be it. No more electronic music, at least for the time being. And we're going to shake things up just a little bit with how we're going to approach our episodes going forward. And we'll give you guys more details about that next week once Quentin's back on the mic with me. And until then, check us out on the Panthers. Pantheon Music Network, that's pantheonpodcast.com. You can also find this on no-filler podcast.com.

We will find show notes for each episode, including track lists and any articles or interviews that we may have referenced on that episode. And that'll do it. Again, my name is Travis. Next week, we're going to talk about daft punk. Until then, take care.