After the success of (2011) and (2014), Intelligent Dance Music (IDM) maestro Tycho (San Francisco-based producer and graphic artist Scott Hansen) has recently released "Epoch". A Soundcloud note describes it as "the keystone of the forthcoming album", which is promised to be "a departure and an evolution for Tycho; honing the sonic aesthetic of Dive while drawing on the kinetic energy of Awake, it explores darker themes and new musical territory".
The fluid intermeshing of synthesized sounds work beautifully on the nearly six minute track, as it alternates between synth and guitar sounds that bask, glow, radiate and intensify to a near-static grind. That same sense of airy space I relished from his previous albums is still there - the kind that makes you feel like you're cruising down an empty highway or gliding through the air on a pulsing jet plane - but the pace is more frenetic and focused, and slightly lacking with regard to that quality of dreamy melancholic introspection that dominated much of Dive (2011). There's still a complex pallet of moods here that make for a lovely and multi-faceted sonic journey - with brief and promising hints of darkerness interrupting the energetic sonic bursts.
