Entries Tagged 'printing & Graphic Essentials' ↓

Feature

6:00 a.m. · October 3, 2011 · by Davis Inman

Scott Hansen is a Californian who creates music under the name of a 16th century Danish astronomer, Tycho. Hansen is a also a graphic designer and visual artist and his output in both disciplines references the scenery and surroundings of his home state. But while songs like “Hours” and “Coastal Brake” conjure up distinct images of Northern California, Hansen says he tries to make music that’s an artifact from a “retro-future, like what people in the ’70s thought 2020 was going to look like.” That cinematic and highly visual style comes through on Tycho’s first full-length record for the Ghostly International label, Dive, which will be released in November. (Hansen previously self-released a full-length entitled Sunrise Projector, which was then reissued as Past is Prologue on the now-defunct IDM label, Merck Records.) we recently spoke with Hansen about the relationship between music and design, nostalgia in his work, and why he builds his own computers.You run a design shop and blog, ISO50, as well as make music as Tycho. how in a business sense do Tycho and ISO50 connect?Over the years, the whole idea of everything was this sort of symbiosis where one thing allowed me to do another, and one thing was the impetus for another — in this weird, self-feeding, spiral. The reason I got into design was to do album covers for my music and posters for my shows. But design is what keeps me paying the rent and be able to make music. over the years I’ve tried to shift the balance and about a year ago I just decided to get to the point where I could really focus on music for a year and let the visual side of things coast. so that’s what I did a year ago to finish this album.Are there specific examples on Dive where you used visual ideas to inspire the music?Yeah, and that’s kind of what the live show is about: re-enforcing those ideas. If you see the visuals, that’s kind of going on. I use found imagery and some of my own graphics and stuff I’ve created. I think that some songs, especially “Hours,” the first single off the album, has very specific imagery attached to it in my head, and always did. and “Coastal Brake” is like a twin song. I feel like they share something. After “Hours” came out, a lot of people were talking about this imagery and it was exactly what I had in my head. it was cool to see that translate without words.How did people describe the imagery to you?Northern California, beach, ocean scenery. Waves. All that sort of California coastal vibe. obviously “Coastal Brake” wasn’t trying to be too secret about it. [Laughs] I moved here from the Valley — Sacramento — and that has it’s own thing: hot summer on the river, slow pace, thick air. I moved to [San Francisco] six years ago, and I just think the city — and getting out of the city — is incredible. I think that re-inspired me. The last two albums were more about Sacramento, the Valley, and all those environments.Some people might call that synesthesia — the mixing of the senses.I wouldn’t go as far as to say, “I’m going to make a song about the ocean.” Most of the songs start from an emotional base, trying to get off this emotional sense. as the song develops, I start to see the imagery. I think the imagery follows the music and not necessarily the other way around. There are some songs that they’ve grown out of each other, where [the music] was influenced by something I did in design or something I saw.Your work references a lot of older music. how do you approach references to the past in a contemporary way?Obviously the retro-nostalgic vibe is a big part of my work. I never set out to make something look dated or from a certain period. I do think that growing up through the ’90s and being inundated with this synthetic electronic music, I think it was backlash in my mind. I have these very vague memories of the ’70s and early ’80s and being very young and seeing all these things through the lens of my parents’ tastes and style. Hearing that music and seeing those clothes — that to me seemed more genuine or real. to me the way things looked and sounded back then was real. But then I use machines to make a lot of the sounds that you hear on the albums and so there’s always been this fight to make things seem like they’re made by hand or have some sort of organic component when I’m using these modern processes, leveraging the tools we have at our disposal now.  What are some of those tools for you? A lot of vintage analog equipment or software?I use everything. I use what makes sense for the case. I don’t like to be too idealistic about things. I do have 30 analog synthesizers. My whole studio is pretty much covered with them. I love analog synthesizers and I use all analog preamps and compressors, and delays and reverbs. But at the same time I have a very modern, powerful computer with tons of plug-ins, and I use the DAW, Reaper. There’s a balancing act there. I do want certain aspects of my music to sound very modern, and certain aspects to be dirty.Do you think the actual technical processes of audio production and graphics editing like Photoshop are similar?Absolutely. I’ve always thought about the parallels between the two processes. It’s almost line for line: layers, tracks, effects. It’s all the same. I think they’re some subtle differences because you’re dealing with different medium, but at the end of the day it’s almost like the exact same process. It’s pretty interesting how similar they are.I’ve also heard some musicians say that audio editing — when you’re cutting up little samples and listening to them over and over — is a lot like video editing.I definitely see those parallels. I try to work more linearly. I like working inside DAWs but I don’t like the Ableton Live model of music creation. That’s never appealed to me. I like the tape model. where you have this long linear piece of audio and you’re splicing that. I don’t like working with the loop-based programs. That’s why I love Reaper. It’s allowed me to look at it as a multi-track tape player. But you don’t have to pull out the tape and the razor blades to do the editing.I learned on this product called Sony Vegas, which is Sony’s multi-track digital audio editor — it never really made it, I don’t know why. I think it was more for video guys. so I love the model of that — it’s how I think and how I learned. [Reaper] kind of took that to the nth degree. I used Cakewalk and I switched over [to Reaper] a year ago. I was just struggling to get this album off the ground and the second I jumped in [Reaper] it was done. It’s a pretty amazing piece of software and it’s also cross-platform.So you use Windows for everything, including design? That seems kind of contrarian for a designer.I’ve always been on Windows because I’m a tinkerer and I like to build computers and I like to feel like I have control over the machine. I never liked the all-in-all package of Apple. I love Apple’s mobile devices. I use their laptops for the shows. for a lot of years, what I needed Photoshop to do wasn’t possible on the kind of hardware that was out there, so I’d build these solutions after enterprise-level hardware specs. you really couldn’t do that for a long time with Apple. Now I’m at a crossroads because I could easily make the switch [from PC to Mac], but it’s hard because Windows is like an extension of me.  When did you get interested in building computers?I was a computer science major in college. My first jobs during school was IT — like installing networks and computer systems for businesses. I went on to do some software-side stuff, building interfaces. I treat it like any guitarist who can field-strip a Les Paul in five minutes and replace everything. The computer is my primary instrument, if you really look at it. I feel like you really need to know your instrument and understand how to get the most out of it.

TagsGhostly InternationalInterviewTycho

Friday July 29, 2011

It’s hard to imagine Aimee Braxmeier anywhere but on top of a mountain.

The Lift Operations Supervisor at Stratton Mountain Resort for the last three years, Aimee strolls through the resort village on a sunny July day, her long light brown hair taking up the breeze.

The 24-year-old wears large sunglasses and a wide, easy grin. She nods casually to her fellow employees and waves hello to the group of staff kids gathered in front of a pre-teen rock band improbably playing the theme song from “Friends.”

There’s plenty of work to do, from pressure washing the undersides of gondolas to weed whacking to setting up gondola evacuation trainings to paperwork, but the pace is slow, the sun warm.

In the winter, Aimee’s days aren’t this relaxed. She supervises about 100 employees operating and maintaining the lifts, on busy days making sure that more than 10,000 skiers and snowboarders get up the mountain safely.

“For the main lifts, it’s six people on a chair every seven seconds,” she says, her blue eyes warm and watchful. “It’s crazy! You don’t really get to take a breath.”

She grins. “I love it. I love my job. Every day I get to snowboard or ski. I’m constantly outside on the hill.”

Aimee’s been playing or working on one hill or another for two decades. She grew up minutes from the Blue Mountain Ski Area in eastern Pennsylvania, where her mother was an RN and her dad made steel beams at Bethlehem Steel Corporation.

She learned how to ski when she was about 4 years old, then a few years later took up snowboarding to be more like a favorite cousin.

“We were up on the mountain all the time,” she remembers. “After school, all winter. I wasn’t really a girly girl — I always liked to be outside, playing in the mud and all that.”

She started working at Blue Mountain when she was 16. Simultaneously, she was drawn to photography and graphic design, two pastimes that require significant indoor time. Her sophomore year, she decided to go to vocational school specifically for graphic design.

But Aimee felt deep misgivings when she was accepted into art schools after she graduated from high school. “I just knew I didn’t want to be sitting in an office all day, staring at a computer,” she says. “That’s what life would have been with graphic design. That’s not me.

“One day, this catalog from Green Mountain College in Poultney came to my house.”

The catalog included a VHS tape on the college’s resort and hospitality management program. Aimee went to the living room and popped in the tape.

“I didn’t even know that resort management existed as a major,” she says. “I saw it, called my mom, and said, ‘this is what I want to do.’”

Through the Green Mountain College program, Aimee ended up studying, working, and living at nearby Killington Resort. there, she gained her first supervisory experience, often having to be in charge of employees many years her senior.

“That was one of the hardest parts of it. It was intimidating to have to discipline someone who was old enough to be my grandfather!”

With coaching from her instructors, she learned how to stay grounded and strong in herself, and how to earn respect by being respectful of others. That grounding was especially helpful as Aimee found herself to be one of only a few women working in the field of mountain operations.

“Right now there are three women here in mountain ops.” She half-smiles, bemused and amused by the situation.

“I never really thought that I’d end up in a career with so few women, but, you know, I grew up with a brother. I’m used to it. You take a lot of stuff with a grain of salt, and the woman who works next to me, put our foot down when it’s important.”

Her easy confidence, enthusiasm and humility serve her well as she manages the huge, diverse winter crew at Stratton, and her good work has earned her accolades from the ski resort industry.

Early this summer, Ski Area Management Magazine, the publication for the resort industry group, named Aimee to their “Top 20 under 30″ list.

“I had no idea I was nominated,” she laughs. “I don’t even know who nominated me. but it’s cool.”

For Aimee, the entire situation is, indeed, cool. She gets to be outside every day. She gets to work with interesting people she likes and respects. She gets to learn all the time. She gets to be in the snow. She gets to work hard and have fun.

“Everybody who comes to the resort, they’re here on vacation,” she points out. “They’re here to have fun. It’s nice to be in that mentality all the time, because I like to have fun, too.”

She’ll be following that sense of fun as she figures out what might come next for her, perhaps a Master’s in land planning and development.

In the meantime, she’s got some weed whacking to do, some safety procedures to review, swimming holes to visit, summertime to enjoy.

Soon enough, the snowflakes and skiers and snowboarders will arrive in flurry, and Aimee Braxmeier will be waiting, grinning, to help everybody get there safely, so everybody can have fun.

Becky Karush is a regular contributor to the Reformer. To suggest people for this column, write to her at reformer.ourneighbors@gmail.com.