Tycho release surprise new record Epoch

Epoch is the follow up to 2014's Awake and features "Division", a new single revealed over the summer, as well as title track "Epoch", which arrived earlier this month.

Listen below, and find out all about the release in our Q&A with Hansen after.

Why have you decided to release this album without any warning?

I've grown tired of the typical release schedule where you turn in a record and wait four or more months for people to hear it; there's a disconnect between the artist and the listener. I wanted a more direct connection to the experience for everyone, for the music to be fresh in our heads when people heard it for the first time.

Will it affect the listening experience?

I think all art is in some way shaped by the current state of the world around the person creating it so there's a element of zeitgiest built into any album. We finished this record about a month before it was to come out so I'm hoping people pick up on that and get a sense that this music is directly connected to the time they are experiencing it in.

How does Epoch differ from your previous work?

All of my work is intended to be evolutionary and iterative. I spent years making Dive in my spare time and then decided to pursue music full time when it came out. Awake was kind of a test of whether I could make a record in a given time frame within the context of a professional music career. I took all of the lessons learned from both of those processes and attempted to refine and extend the sound. I think in a lot of ways sonically this album picks up where Dive left off while incorporating all lot of the visceral aspects of Awake.

What does it sound like to your ears?

With this record I hear a return to the multi-layered tapestry that was the driving concept behind all of my work prior to Awake. But this time I was more conscious of keeping things discrete, carving out spaces for each part and maintaining a level of separation. I think the result is a deep sonic field that doesn't smear together as much as it may have on past records.

Are there any themes or ideas that run through the record?

I moved from my home in San Francisco to the hills of Berkeley to make this record. It was an isolated place and I think that informed the record. As a result there is a very insular energy to the record. For me personally it is a return to the direct connection between emotion and output. I think with Awake the process became very conscious, at times perhaps overthought. This was a very stream-of-consciousness record from a writing perspective.

Where the music is instrumental, the biggest hints towards the 'meanings' are titles - what's the purpose of calling the album Epoch?

I always want to leave the songs as ambiguous as possible so that the listener can derive their own meaning from the music. But for me personally this record represents a kind of closing of an era in my life and a person and an artist. It feels like a culmination and a beginning. I think there are songs on this record that feel like the final expression of ideas I have been working with my entire career, while others feel like the first sparks of a new direction. I think I will look back on record this as a sort of breakpoint in the project.

The album feels very cinematic, with big dynamic shifts and lots of experiments with texture. Do you create your music with visuals in mind?

The two are intertwined for me. It's not that one comes from the other, I just feel that there is a visual space that each song paints which materializes as the song begins to take shape.

How does your visual work inform your music?

I don't think they inform each other as much as they are one singular idea. The imagery is just the visual component of the sound in the same way you might hear the ocean and visualize waves in your mind.

If this album was a soundtrack, what sort of film would it be soundtracking?

A trip through the American Southwest.

What are you live plans in the coming months?

We are currently on a three-week tour in the US and then we're taking the rest of the year off. I'll be spending that time rebuilding the live production and resetting a lot of the visual and musical content for the show to prepare for January when we start touring extensively again.

What are you working on next?

I want to start working on new music as soon as possible, I felt like the two years between Awake and Epoch was too long for me.

Do you have many plans for 2017 yet?

We'll be doing extensive worldwide tours including shows in the UK and hopefully working on new music.

Epoch is out now via Ghostly International. Listen below.