Montana

Scott Hansen, recording as Tycho, makes music that sounds like late afternoon in California — warm synthesizers, guitar lines moving at the pace of something drifting rather than driven, production with the quality of analog warmth even when achieved digitally. Dive (2011) was his breakthrough record.

Montana demonstrates the Tycho approach: a melody that develops over several minutes, the rhythm section holding a groove that is present without being insistent, the overall effect calming without being soporific.

Tycho's subsequent albums have maintained the approach while developing it. Dive remains the most immediately accessible introduction to his work.