The Majestic Theater hosted an eclectic, sold-out crowd March 23 for one of the industry’s truest renaissance men, California producer/musician/visual artist Scott Hansen, better known as Tycho. While Hansen has been writing and producing albums as Tycho for over a decade, he now tours with a full band and an artistically thoughtful visual show that he designed himself. Tycho, every bit as accomplished a graphic artist as he is a musician, has been producing visual art for years under the name ISO50. Following in the wake of his 2014 album Awake, Tycho brought his unique blend of ambient post-rock and synth music on the road with a coherent vision that translated perfectly into his new live show.
Only one group, Brooklyn ambient duo Beacon, supported Tycho on the bill. Their sound is comparable to a lot of Tycho’s more electronic work, heavy on the laid-back drum beats with driving kick drums, overlaid midi synth tones and ambient vocals. Their electrified remix of Tycho’s “See” was featured on Tycho’s deluxe release of Awake, but Beacon has released a variety of original singles, EPs and full-length albums in the last few years. I’d recommend their 2014 EP "L1" to anyone who’s a fan of laid-back indie rock, post-rock or slower electronic music.
One of the things that struck me before Tycho’s performance even started was the orientation of their visual display, which was like nothing I’d seen before, but perfect for the artistic direction of the show. Instead of a lit-up visual display on the stage, a projector near the sound booth projected a crisp, high-definition video onto a white backdrop behind the band. A lack of bright lights radiating from the stage gave the visual show a subtlety in its presentation, but the video that Hansen and his collaborators produced was more artistic and coherent than I ever could have expected. During the set break before the band went on, an image of mountains and sky covered the screen.
When Tycho took the stage, they played a variety of songs from throughout their catalog, but their last two albums, Dive and Awake, were the most represented in the setlist. The musicianship of everyone in Tycho’s band was commendable. Hansen and two other musicians alternated periodically between keys, guitar and bass, but Hansen’s primary role was on the synth. Intricate but tight beats from the band’s drummer held the soundscape together as the clean, reverb-heavy guitars built on top of each other. A myriad of playful midi-synth melodies coming from Hansen’s battle station of keyboards and knobs accompanied the sound. Throughout the set, a strict sense of focus and sincerity was noticeable—Hansen hardly spoke to the audience between songs, and every member of the band was visibly enveloped in their performance. This didn’t take anything away from the show; their sound was so crisp and developed that it delivered far more energy then it would have if they focused those efforts on running around fabricating a “stage presence.” That’s the beautiful thing about post-rock.
The video display, in my opinion, was just as important to the overall vision of the show as the music, and the emphasis on natural landscapes and scenery perfectly matched the band’s overall sound which could be perfectly described simply as “beautiful.” Footage of fountains, oceans and plains filled the screen, fading in and out with other imagery of people in majestic settings, including stunning shots of a woman standing in the desert, her hair blowing in the wind. Of course, this was accompanied by digitally-created patterns and colors that didn’t evoke a specific natural scenery, but even these portions were produced and presented more artistically than at most shows I’ve seen. Perhaps the most out-of-the-ordinary footage showed levitating druids with Gandalf hats and beards performing some sort of mysterious ritual in the woods. Why? I don’t know. But it was beautiful.
The entire aesthetic of the show shifted when Tycho left the stage and came back for an encore. After a quick change of clothes, Hansen came back out without the rest of his band in an all-white outfit and the show began to embody the more fantastical, futuristic aesthetic of 2014’s Awake. He opened the encore with an electrified dance remix of the album’s title track before bringing out the rest of the band to join him. The imagery on screen now featured digitally created geometric patterns, a dramatic shift from the emphasis on natural scenery, but every bit as extravagant. The kaleidoscopic visuals were breathtaking, and it was very easy to see why Tycho has made such a name for himself as a graphic artist. The band played “Awake,” “L” and a couple of other more energetic, melodic songs before calling it a night. The encore was easily the most energetic portion of the band’s set, and the first time that the majority of the people on the floor began to dance and move.
This was Tycho’s first performance in Madison, and the city was extremely kind to him. Not only was the Majestic Theater sold out, but it was an incredibly enthusiastic audience for a type of music that doesn’t typically demand a high-energy crowd. It was certainly different from most of the shows I've seen at the Majestic, in that the performance wasn’t invested in making people dance or get “hyped.” But, it was the most captivating performance I’ve seen in months. It was a great choice on Tycho’s part to bring the whole live band on tour, because the depth of their sound and coherence of their entire live show made it one of the best performances I’ve seen on the Majestic stage. At the very least, it was the best Monday evening I’ve ever had.
