Tycho likes to walk a tightrope.

Scott Hansen, the man behind Tycho, strives to balance his different interests in life and in music. The inherent originality this produces makes Tycho and its sound one of a kind.

Previously a freelance graphic designer, Hansen decided to spotlight his passion for music about a year ago. But designing didn’t go.

Graphic designer and musician Tycho, performed at the Georgia Theatre on Jan. 31. SEAN TAYLOR/Staff

“I’ve always been a visually-oriented person,” he said. “I’ve been drawing since I was a kid.”

Although his designs still flow, Hansen has given the majority of his time to music.

“I gave design a good 10 years of my life, and I was always imagining that I would shift the focus to music,” he said. “I’ve got another 10 years budgeted for this. It’s not purely a visual pursuit — it’s an audio-visual project.”

Even though Hansen is more experienced in design, he tries not to let one element overcome the other.

“There’s only so much you can do with a still image,” he said, “whereas music is more of a moving chain that changes every time you listen to it.”

Hansen tries to recapture that union of both.

“They both come out of each other,” he said. “There’s no real separation between the two.”

Hansen is passionate about both the images and the sounds he creates, but neither is as important without the other.

“I can only truly express myself fully when I’m using both at the same time,” he said. “You can’t truly understand either until you see them at the same time.”

Despite his many-layered creations, Hansen often seems a little flat and straight-forward in conversation. Admitting to feeling his strongest emotions through music, Hansen’s art also enlivens the set of sounds, with background visuals rolling behind the band as it plays.

Incorporating psychedelic colorful swirling, still photography and even home video-like footage, the montage is just as diverse and smooth as the music it runs to.

Even without the visuals, however, the music of Tycho is an experience. Hansen classifies his sounds as ambient, electronic and psychedelic, plus experimentation.

“I like electronically-tinged things — things that are a hybrid between electronic and rock,” he said.

With aspects of performance also including trance and classic styles, Tycho’s show has a hook for everyone.

If anything at all, Tycho will entertain.

“I hope for an hour or so the audience feels transported,” Hansen said. “I want it to become a cinematic experience — not like the movie though, because it’s not as passive as a movie.”

LISTEN UP! — “Dive”

It’s the kind of album you can put on and forget — almost.

Tycho’s “Dive” is one of those albums that creates a soundtrack to life: the songs a personal narrator as it plays out before the listener.

Borrowing portions from dance, techno, traditional electric guitar, acoustic guitar and chill wave in each song, it’s hard to categorize the album as a whole. Is this an album to play when happy, sad, excited or down?

The answer is lonely.

But Tycho’s evolution of sound and theme also creates excitement — without one word, the album thrills every moment with a new trill on the guitar, a switched-up beat on the drums or a moment of perfect stillness allowing for an acoustic solo.

The resulting sound is so natural one might even forget it is playing — almost, with the highlight of the breakthroughs of a woman’s high-pitched cries opening the title track.

Tycho the persona, however, is hard to find on the album.

After listening, one doesn’t know him any better, as the melodies float in and out and change rapidly.

But then again, that isn’t all bad.

Tycho didn’t make this album for himself, to show off or prove his powerful mixing skills — OK maybe a little bit.

But, just maybe, he made it for us.