Dive (Tycho album)

''Dive'' is the second studio album by American ambient musician Scott Hansen's project Tycho. Taking around five years to produce and write, ''Dive'', according to Hansen, is a set of "artifacts from a future which might have more in common with our past than our present." It is an electronica record with a sound and style that was compared to the works of Scottish group Boards of Canada by multiple professional music journalists. ''Dive'' was released on November 8, 2011 by the label Ghostly International to mostly positive reviews from critics, and it landed on '' Billboard'''s United States Top Dance/Electronic Albums and Top Heatseekers Albums charts.

''Dive'' continues what a '' Drowned in Sound'' writer described as the formula of "radar loops and Massive Attack beats" from past Tycho albums and was also made with mostly hardware and analog equipment like previous records of the project. However, there were also differences in terms of the vibe of ''Dive'' and how the album was made. Hansen switched from Cakewalk Sonar to REAPER for digital audio workstation-based arranging and mixing during production of ''Dive''. The LP was the first Tycho record to be made with outboard gear such as pre-amps, analog delay devices, and old digital reverb software, as well as use microphone-recorded acoustic instrumentation. The sound and vibe of the album was also considered more "dynamic", "multidimensional" and "livelier" than past Tycho records by reviewers.

Concept

''Dive'', according to Hansen, is a set of "artifacts from a future which might have more in common with our past than our present." He described it as the "full picture" of what he was trying to make with ''Sunrise Projector / Past Is Prologue''.

Writing and influences

The first song written for ''Dive'' was "Adrift", the last being "Elegy".Leonard, Alex (July 23, 2015)
"Tycho speaks about his production process and artistic values [Interview]"
''Earmilk''. Retrieved June 21, 2017. Scott Hansen began writing most of the songs on guitar, some of the album's tracks even having guitars in them. He said that when he played a guitar, he often "ma more mistakes, and that characterize my process more than anything, experimentation and mistakes. And that’s what is interesting because, in that way, the songs kind of create themselves and you’re there more to witness it."DeLeo, Sam (June 28, 2012)
"The Reverb Interview: Scott Hansen of Tycho"
''The Denver Post''. Digital First Media. Retrieved June 21, 2017. The only track on ''Dive'' that Hansen started making with digital equipment was the title track; he began making the song on a software synthesizer before adding other analog instruments.

Hansen explained that each song was developed in "little bits of inspiration", and that "taking that idea to what I consider to be a finished product is a very, very long, winding road of meticulously going over every detail." In making each track, he first created a 16-bar melody and bass line to set its mood, before working on other sounds. For making the drums, he started with making a loop to "give imselfan idea or a grid." The last objective he completed in producing each song was editing and arranging the drum and percussion sounds.

Hansen was influenced by the works of DJ Shadow to have all of the tracks contain multiple ideas, where the listener goes on a "journey through ..different places." As Hansen said, "I like to look at my songs as having a main part, an interlude, and almost like another song at the end." Listening to progressive rock also influenced Hansen to created an album "pretty informed by stepping outside the boundaries of normal experience, or your daily life, and just trying to get to another kind of space." He also explained, "I didn't want to go all the way into that world of, like, 'Hey, man, when you're high this sounds really good.' I try to avoid self-indulgence at all costs."

Production

''Dive'' took approximately five years to complete.Fallon, Patric (October 31, 2011)
"Tycho: Scott Hansen takes his audio/visual experience to new heights with 'Dive'."
''XLR8R''. Retrieved June 20, 2017. As with previous Tycho records, ''Dive'' was made mostly with hardware production devices and analog sound generators;Reynaldo, Shawn (January 30, 2012)
"In the Studio: Tycho"
''XLR8R''. Retrieved June 21, 2017. in fact, many of the sounds that appear on the album were produced on a Minimoog.Watercutter, Angela (November 9, 2011)
"Tycho Shows Off Old-School Synths Used to Craft Dive’s Ethereal Sounds"
''Wired''. Conde Nast. Retrieved June 21, 2017. The only time digital software was used was for arranging the songs and adding EQ and compression to the instrument recordings, which was all done in the digital audio workstation REAPER.

There were many differences in how ''Dive'' was produced in comparison to Tycho's previous albums.Durston, Tom (November 15, 2011)
"Tycho"
''Inverted Audio''. Retrieved June 22, 2017. Around a year before Hansen completed the album, he switched the digital workstation he was using from Cakewalk Sonar to REAPER.Davisman (October 3, 2011)
"Tycho On Music And Design, Nostalgia, And Building Computers"
''Prefix''. Retrieved June 25, 2017. He reasoned that "Cakewalk just wasn’t working anymore for isflow" and that Reaper "allowed imto look at it as a multi-track tape player. But e didn'thave to pull out the tape and the razor blades to do the editing." Hansen explained, "I was just struggling to get this album off the ground and the second I jumped in eaperit was done." ''Dive'' was the first Tycho album where Hansen recorded acoustic instruments with microphones, thus it features many more guitar and electric bass parts than past Tycho records. It was also the first Tycho record to be made with outboard gear such as pre-amps, analog delay devices, and old digital reverb software.

Composition

''Dive'' has been described as featuring IDM,Lemmon, Kyle (November 15, 2011)
"Tycho – Dive"
''Prefix''. Retrieved June 26, 2017. balearic, hypnagogic pop, and electronica throughout. According to Reyan Ali, it uses the "sleek and economical construction" of post-punk synthesizers that have the same "imaginative color" as shoegaze guitars, along with post-rock-esque crescendos and build; elements of space music are also present. George Bass, a reviewer for '' Drowned in Sound'', analyzed that ''Dive'' maintains the same formula of "radar loops and Massive Attack beats" as ''Sunrise Projector''. The LP mainly consists of a sound palette of female humming, what Derek Miller of '' Resident Advisor'' described as "pulsing" synthesizers, what Ali described as "spacey" blips, subtle acoustic guitar, ocean foley, and what Miller called "sparkling" drum machines. Miller described ''Dive'' as "sun-blanched, caked in reverb and semi-hallucinatory fuzz, and kind of wavy at the point where visual lines intersect." Critic Loren Auda Poin analyzed that the synthesizer sounds "border on vagueness, barely holding their jelly-like shape as they coalesce atop relaxed but driving beats."

In numerous reviews, ''Dive'''s sound and style was compared to the works of Boards of Canada.Judge, Stephen (December 21, 2011)
"Tycho – Dive"
''Blurt''. Retrieved June 26, 2017. Allmusic's Jason Lymangrover was one of these critics, writing that it uses the same format of "liquid keyboards drizzled over gentle beats" as the works of Boards of Canada and Ulrich Schnauss. He also grouped the album with other electronica artists such as M83 and Neon Indian and Small Black. Eric Harvey of '' Spin'' magazine more specifically compared ''Dive'' to Boards of Canada's ''Geogaddi'' album. Bass described the album's sound as consisting of "pink sunsets, shuffling hipsters and old video hardware." Some critics have also made direct comparisons of ''Dive'' to the works of chillwave artists such as Toro Y Moi and Washed Out.Wallace, Wyndham
Review of Tycho - Dive
BBC Music. 17 November 2011. Retrieved 6 April 2012. Ali compared ''Dive'' to ''The Earth Is Not a Cold Dead Place'' (2003), an album by Explosions in the Sky, due to "its many gorgeous hues," as well as its musical style to the works of Air.

Joe Colly of ''Pitchfork'' compared ''Dive'' to Boards of Canada and Bibio in terms of its "electro-organic" sound structure of synthesizers and live instruments. He wrote that what differentiates ''Dive'' from the works of other independent artists that use "electro-organic" arrangements is the "simple" and "OCD-level" way each track is crafted and built up. As Colly wrote, "In place of the tinny, synthetic beats favored by lots of indie-ambient startups, Hansen takes extra care to capture real live drum sounds with a crack and thump that makes you feel like you're in the room with them." Colly used "Daydream" as an example of Hansen's attention to detail in terms of song building. As he wrote, it "starts out fairly simple with twinkly guitars and a sturdy, knocking beat, but the song's pulse quickens as it progresses, and by the end you've got something heady enough to live up to its title."

Mike Stagno of '' Sputnikmusic'' analyzed a musical difference of ''Dive'' from past Tycho releases that gives the LP a more "dynamic" sound: elements of folk music serving as the "foundation" of most of its tracks, where "swirling melodies give way to acoustic guitars." Stagno also noted that ''Dive'' has a "livelier, more carefree atmosphere" than the "nostalgic, sometimes contemplative motif of Hansen's previous albums of the project. This is most showcased on the album's eight-minute title-track, where, as Stagno wrote, "driving beats help keep everything focused as Hansen lays down lush soundscapes that help maintain an infectious mood that is as dreamy as it is energetic." Erik Burg of ''Beats Per Minute'' noted ''Dive'''s "transmorphic sound:" "He can shift from a barrage of keyboards, synthesizers, and drum machines to an acoustic guitar at the drop of a hat, all while sounding completely cohesive on both a track and album level." He described the album as a "essential device for sparking imagination," writing that it has "a spirit and liveliness which is translated through the listener on their own terms."

Kyle Lemmon, a critic for ''Prefix'' magazine, described ''Dive'' as a post-modern album and a record "ensconced in the musty past of outdated appliances and ideas." He analyzed that the LP is a set of "nature-inspired" tracks where "the seemingly commonplace nature all around us" is "as foreign and transfixing as '' E.T''." He also described the album as more "aquatic and climate-altering" than past Tycho albums.

Artwork

The artwork of ''Dive'' depicts a multihued sun that, as Patric Fallon writes, "practically melt into a large swath of barren earth." Even though Hansen, who created the artwork, left it vague as to whether or not the cover art is trying to depict a sun rising or setting, he stated that the cover art represented a sunset to him:
"It's kind of like the epilogue to a chapter in my life as an artist and a person. This last year has been really transformative in a lot of ways, personally, so this album is kind of a punctuation on the end of a really intense period f my life The end of a part of me."

Release and promotion

On November 7, 2011, the website Electronic Beats made ''Dive'' available for streaming as part of their ''EB Listening Party'' series. On November 17, 2011, ''Rolling Stone'' released a free download of ''Dive'''s title track.

Combined sales of ''Dive'' and ''Awake'' stand at 200,000 copies sold worldwide.

Reception

Burg called ''Dive'' "undeniably important" due to its "ability to tell a story without words" and "to capture a scene and a raw emotion with just sound, a task that more than a few band bands try, and usually fail, at accomplishing." He wrote, "if you’re willing to put in the three quarters of an hour that it takes to finish the album, and you’re able to free your mind of any foregone conclusions or suppositions you have, ''Dive'' could easily be your favorite record this year." However, he also wrote that the album is "underwhelm ngin certain situations." Miller wrote that ''Dive'' "rewards patience," writing that "its soft focus remove repays repeat listens, not "ambient" per se but atmospheric, alternating moments of presence with necessary spaceouts."

Both Stagno and Lymangrover called ''Dive'' more "multidimensional" than Tycho's previous albums. Lymangrover reasoned that it was due to its use of more acoustic instruments than past releases of the project. Stagno stated that while the album "lacks a certain flair" of previous Tycho records, it was still "the kind of high quality release one expects from Hansen." He also wrote, "Drawing on a variety of different sounds and structures, Tycho is able to craft a number of immersive tracks." In a review for ''BBC Music'', Wyndham Wallace opined that ''Dive'' "meets expectations, and while surpassing them is something achieved only occasionally, this is a record that well complements a no-work state of mind."

In a less positive review, Joe Colly of ''Pitchfork'' criticized the album's lack of surprise, writing "If that nicely detailed tranquility is ''Dives biggest selling point, it also exposes a nagging flaw, which is a lack of tension. Hansen is so committed to keeping things serene that he doesn't incorporate much danger or risk, and at times the album can feel a bit one-note." Poin similarly criticized the LP for the fact that the tracks "seem to stroke and soothe the mind’s imaginative engine, rather than exciting it." While he did enjoy ''Dive'', calling it a "beautiful album with an amniotic vibe," he also wrote that it was "a bit repetitive," writing that "each of ''Dive''’s songs gel into one atmosphere rather than branching into the semi-organic variety of the best records." He felt that ''Dive'' did not do what electronic music instrumental records should, which is "shift into gears we didn’t even know existed, so we marvel at the counterintuitive beauty of the machine." Harvey described ''Dive'' as "a pretty and sturdily crafted collection of techno maybe-memories."

Bass called ''Dive'' "irresistibly good," writing that for a 66-minute-long album, "Hansen’s clever enough to add spice where it’s needed, edging his sluggish beats away from New Age and into something more engaging." A negative of the LP mentioned his review for ''Drowned in Sound'' was that "large portions of it overlap." He reasoned that "a few tracks feel plain identical" to the point where they fit the definition of ambient music set by Brian Eno as “music interesting/bland enough to either analyse with headphones or put on in the background while ironing.” Lemmon wrote that with ''Dive'', "Tycho makes damn sure to make his tracks move even when they seem like they’re just stargazing." He also wrote that "there’s little pretension wafting over his analog craft and the melodic tokens he unearths are as iridescent as an oceanic sunset."

''PopMatters'' named ''Dive'' the third-best electronic album of 2011, writing: " avy processing and multicolored aural flourishes unwind here and for the duration, yielding playback that’s refreshingly reluctant on returns."The Best Electronic Music of 2011
Popmatters. 22 December 2011. Retrieved 14 April 2012.

Track listing

Personnel

The following people contributed to ''Dive'':Dive - Tycho - Credits
Allmusic. Retrieved 4 April 2012.
*Scott Hansen – artwork, bass, drums, guitar, keyboards, mastering, mixing
*Zac Brown – guitars, bass
*Dusty Brown – production consultant
*Count – mastering, mixing
*Matt McCord – production consultant, bass
*Jianda Johnson (a.k.a. "Jianda Monique") – vocals

Charts

References

External links

Ghostly International's page on ''Dive''

{{Authority control

2011 albums
Tycho (musician) albums
Ghostly International albums
Hypnagogic pop albums
Intelligent dance music albums