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Dusted Features
Every Friday, Dusted Magazine publishes a series of music-related lists determined by our favorite artists. This week: San Francisco dreamweaver Scott Hansen and Norway noise rockers Arabrot.
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Listed: Tycho + Arabrot
Tycho
Scott Hansen, a.k.a. Tycho, is an electronic musician and graphic designer from San Francisco. An avid collector of vintage synthesizers, Hansen makes relaxing, immersive music full of analog melodies and languid machines. Boards of Canada is the most obvious touchstone, but Tycho’s music prioritizes hope over hauntology. His latest album Dive is out now on Ghostly International.
1. The Beatles - Magical Mystery Tour
My godfather used to give me tapes of his favorite albums. The first one was Magical Mystery Tour, and it pretty much blew my mind as a 10 year old. I think this is the first time I remember consciously understanding what it was to appreciate music instead of passively consuming it.
2. The Doors - LA Woman
My dad had this on 8-track and it may take the top spot for all-time heaviest rotation. This album never got old; it introduced me to the darker side of music. Until I heard this album, I think I felt like music was about lifting your mood. This taught me listening could be about introspection and confrontation.
3. Led Zeppelin - III
Fully taking in this album marked the moment I really understood music and what I wanted from it. This kicked off a Zeppelin love affair that lasted from around 11 years old to this day.
4. Erasure - Chorus
This was the first "electronic" album I heard, or at least the first time I recognized an album as being electronically made. I think it was when I first realized that not all music had to be made with guitars and drums, and I think it opened the doors to a lot of the stuff I got into later.
5. Digable Planets - Blowout Comb
This was a high-water mark in my appreciation of hip-hop. It had such a dark vibe and the sampling / keyboard work was so perfect; it was electronic music before I really knew what electronic music was. I had built a pretty serious sound system into my car and it was like it was tuned to listen to this album in particular.
6. Various Artists - Extra Sensual Perception Volume 2 - The Trance Groove
This marked the first time I bought an all-instrumental electronic record. Back in high school, I used to dig around in the compilations section at Tower Records in Citrus Heights and I found this one and gave it a shot. I have no idea why — the cover was about as ugly as they come and the name was no better — but for some reason I bought it. I took it with me to Santa Cruz where my friends were having a party. This was the first time I ever got really, really stoned and I ended up just laying on a bed listening to this album on repeat with headphones. That experience changed my life, in that it gave me a new appreciation for what music could be. I drew a connection between music and the ability to transcend reality and step outside yourself.
7. LTJ Bukem - Logical Progression, Vol. 1
I had just moved to San Francisco when this came out. I was absolutely floored by this album. I had never heard drum ‘n’ bass and this sound was what finally made me want to go from consuming music to creating it. Within a year, I had a drum machine and a sampler.
8. DJ Shadow - Entroducing
I first heard this right around the time I started making music and used it as the template for a lot of my early experiments. After being exposed mostly to the more dance-oriented side of electronic music, the way Shadow blended in samplist / hip-hop sensibilities and explored the more chill / ambient side of things really caught my ear.
9. Boards of Canada - BOC Maxima
A friend gave me this tape and I can’t explain what a profound experience it was to listen to this for the first time. Even though I had been listening to what I would consider electronic music for a couple years at that point, this album sounded like nothing I had ever heard. It taught me that there were no real rules in music, it was something so counter to everything I thought I understood. It opened my eyes to so many new possibilities.
10. Ulrich Schnauss - A Strangely Isolated Place
Hearing the way he took a lot of what Boards of Canada were doing and injected this emotional energy into it definitely inspired me to put more of myself into my own music. Where I felt like a lot of electronic musicians were trying to be stylish or show off their skills, it seemed Ulrich was wearing his heart on his sleeve and creating beautiful music with no apologies. I think it taught me that beauty has a place in music no matter how it is created.
Arabrot
Picking up where heavy legends Jesus Lizard and Melvins left off, Norway’s Arabrot is a noise-rock force to be reckoned with. Named after the city garbage disposal in Hauegesund, the band traffics in pummeling riffs and industrial electronics. On its latest album, Solar Anus, the band enlisted Steve Albini to record and mix the record. Drummer Vidar Evensen participated in this week’s Listed.
1. Okkultokrati - No Light for Mass
“Ragnarokian”: "Projection of the mind, gateway through empty space!". That’s all it took, I was sold! One of the best records outta Norway in 2010. They slay live as well! A joint between Bathory and Black Flag. Get it? fnords....
2. Moistboyz - I & II
The not-so-PC offshoot of Ween is a kick! Great drum machine, shweet rap, tons of humor and distorted guitars straight into the desk, man. What more do you want? Turn up the bass for “1.0 (Fuck No),” “Carjack” and “U Blow!”
3. Chrome - Half Machine Lip Moves
Shit! Acid punk. Everything The Stooges got and everything they lack, too. It is like ol’ punk on the same drug, with a dose of Krautrock. Somehow they spawned the start of what we now call noise-rock. The glue of any good record collection.
4. Scott Walker - Scott
Maybe not his best album, but, hey, I’m a fan. Chosen because of his great version of the Brel classic “My Death.” Just imagine how the teenage pop music girls reacted when he picked that cut to be his Saturday night TV appearance on The Billy Cotton Band Show. That was really a moment where you got a glimpse of where he was headed. A fine example of a great artist. Great arrangements and great lyrics. Totally KILLER!
5. The Residents - Not Available
This album seems to be able to make people from Texarkana (Texas) to throw up. I’ve seen it happen, and it was a wonderful sight. Other than that, this monolith of psychedelic strangeness has made me swallow more and more and more... Ship’s A Goin’ Down, OK, OK?
6. Burzum - Hvis lyset tar oss / Mayhem - De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas
If you’ve never listened to black metal, listen to these two records. If you listen to black metal, you know what I mean.
7. Zeni Geva - Freedom Bondage
To choose one of their albums isn’t easy, the killer instinct seems to be present in all of them. More extreme than any extreme metal. The hard metallic kamikaze sound might be a pain in the balls for some knuckleheads. For me, it brings forth the F.O.A.D. fist and shivers through my spine.
8. The Snivelling Shits - I Can’t Come
My absolute favorite U.K. punk album! If I’m to dance, it’s either this or a Captain Beefheart record. This shit is so catchy, funny, drugged out and spot on at all times! Woooow! Crank it and get the smile ---> grin ---> smile cycle goin’.
9. Throbbing Gristle - D.O.A: The Third and Final Report of...
Just wake up and listen to this. If I had made “Hamburger Lady,” I would have owned a bathtub by now. No words…
10. Lee Hazlewood - Cowboy in Sweden
I would never survive a tour without this album. I mean, it’s always good. If you’re not in the mood for this stuff, you just don’t have any mood. Call the doctor if it doesn’t hit you in any way. "The Night Before" and "No Train to Stockholm" are brilliant. Take the word from the man himself.
By Dusted Magazine
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