jj:Your design's very slick and modern on your sites. Do you do all the design? Are you self-taught?

Tycho: There was a two-year stretch where I literally didn't leave my apartment! (Laughs). I really got into cool Drum n Bass--Roni Size, LTJ Bukem, those guys are really design-conscious in their packaging. I just built from all those influences, others' works, learning by doing, forcing myself to work those programs and figure out how these people have done what they've done.

That's why I wanted to wait a while...if you're trying to replicate, then you learn more and more, and soon, you're able to create your own things that are more original.

JJ: Tell us about your album art.

Tycho: Well, I wanted to give things a "far-off" feel. The children running, it's like a cycle of life. You see children on the front playing by the ocean. The best years of your life. On the back, it's about birth. Mother and child.

And inside, there's an old man, smoking a cigarette. A symbol of decline, death, the end of your life.

I actually had a song that used samples from the movie "Magnolia" about that cycle.

JJ: But alas...costs cash... Couldn't include it. Darn! I'm curious about how you promote your music. What works best for you?

Tycho:Well, I'm new to this. From what I've seen on the Net, it really doesn't matter where you come from. But on the other hand, it's really the face-to-face stuff that gets things done.

When you hand a guy a CD physically, he's more apt to listen to it, and he'll even take it more seriously maybe because he sees it's the physical thing you've produced.

I mean, DJ Shadow is from Davis--he was all about Sacramento! The front cover of his intro album's shot at a record store across the street from where I used to work. So, that's proof positive that if you're good and you want to make it happen, it doesn't matter where you're from. Where you choose to be...where your home base is.

JJ: Folks can never hear that enough. Back to you--you use the term "lo fi beats" to describe your sound. Explain.

Tycho: The technical definition would be, taking a 16-bit sample sound (CD/standard bit rate) and bringing it down to 8-bit, which chews the sound up and gives it a gritty edge. It can also beef things up, and gives your music a good, warm sound.

I like to apply distortion and low bit rates to some of my tracks. Organs, distortion filters, EP (electric) pianos...and I like to run a lot of my kick drums run through filters...again, it adds warmth and makes things sound a little bit more real.