About Variant

Detroit/Chicago, USA-based electronic music producer and Echospace [Detroit] record label head honcho, Stephen Hitchell, uses the Variant moniker to release his more long-form ambient and drone inflected recordings. Variant's albums invoke various celestial phenomena ranging from comets, to stars, to the aurora borealis. The cosmic preoccupation plays out in the music too, which ranges from warm analog space ambient infused with field recordings to more rhythmically active synthesizer loops and drones. Indeed, Variant's recordings are intended to "score the constellation of mystical events occurring in the depths of space." Although Variant recordings date back as far as the early 1990s, Hitchell's debut Variant album wasn't released until 2008's highly praised The Setting Sun, which fused "field recordings made whilst experiencing a late night storm in Berlin and a train journey in Japan," acoustic instruments, and synthesizer sounds. 2011's follow up Falling Stars was described by Igloo Magazine as "the chirping of crickets on a still, humid, starry-skied night, a swaying, piped hiss... blooming strings dissipate, leaving the calmer swell of the delicate pads." In 2013, Variant released the live recording Thru the Cosmos [Ison + Spica] in response to "perhaps the most anticipated astronomical event of the year as Comet ISON makes its way toward the sun." The recording was intended to score as a soundtrack to the comet's period of closest proximity to the sun. 2014's Dreaming Thru Vector, utilized a wide array of "analog sequencers, modular systems and homemade effects manipulated bounced down to 1/4" tape." Hitchell used various forms of Vector Synthesis in the recording by incorporating four stages of oscillations through a variety of sound generators and synthesizers resulting in a sound described as "organic arctic noise." Later this year, Aurora's Dream is slated for release. "The objective for this venture was to create an ever evolving sonic ocean utilizing the enigmatic spheres of ambient structure and rhythm, wherein movements are methodically rendered from various forms of synthesis, subdued with mystical ghostly harmonics and artifacts from aged analog hardware."