Tycho

As the founder of solo-project-turned-electronic-group Tycho, San Francisco producer Scott Hansen composes dream pop equally fit for focused study sessions, lackadaisical daydreams and midnight rides on nimbus clouds. Born in February 1977, Hansen grew up in bucolic parts of California’s Sacramento County and first got into electronic music after getting his hands on a used Roland MC-303 drum machine. At first he was fascinated with drum ’n’ bass, but by the early 2000s he was digging into the atmospheric electronic textures of projects like Boards of Canada. A passion for meditative synthesis is clear on Tycho’s 2006 debut full-length, Past Is Prologue, and Hansen expands his scope even further with the lush guitar lines and head-nodding rhythms of his 2011 follow-up, Dive. Over the years, Hansen has brought in other contributors, including bassist/guitarist Zac Brown (no relation to the Zac Brown Band frontman) and drummer Rory O’Connor, to bring more of an organic, live feel to Tycho’s mostly instrumental tracks. Their efforts culminated in 2019 with the album Weather, a collaboration with the vocalist Saint Sinner, who adds a more pronounced (if still subdued) sense of melody to the group’s aqueous soundscapes. Indeed, as much as Tycho has evolved over the years, Hansen’s project has remained a potent source for channelling inner calm.