The title track on Tycho's long-awaited "Dive" LP is just that - a ripple effect record that sounds like three songs in one, as if sound/graphic designer Scott Hansen just discovered prog-rock and decided to apply its winding passages to his own singular blend of sinewy synths and bleached beats. It's also the first Tycho song to feature a prominent guest musician; guitarist Zac Brown, in this case, who paints outside the lines of Hansen's halcyon hooks with restless rhythms and monorail-like riffs.
The "Dive" single fleshes things out even further, as Keep Shelly in Athens and Memoryhouseboth rising underground artists in their own rightcut Hansen's cloud-scraping composition in half and slow his cruise control chords down to a crawl. The misty vocal melodies are still there, but they're now floating through an embryonic assembly of jittery cicadas, rusty gears, and lean loops that are both welcoming and a bit woozy. The sonic equivalent of staring at the sun for too long, really, or two sides of the same cracked mirror.