Music for Mondays: YACHT ▲
- Details
- Category: Music for Mondays
- Published on Monday, 04 June 2012 13:56
- Written by Chris
The band YACHT (or Y▲CHT) comes to us from Portland via Texas and LA. Their lyricists might not work for everyone, but their music's catchy and fun for the whole brood (e.g. 'Dystopia', 'Paradise Engineering'), with a couple you'll want to skip (I'm looking at you, 'One Step').
I first learned of them on NPR's All Songs Considered podcast. You can see their Tiny Desk Concert (which is, as we've noted before, an awesome series) here.
YACHT began as something of a solo performance art project by Portland native Jona Bertchold . Claire Evans, who emigrated from Swindon, England, at the ripe ol' age of six, joined Jona several years into the 'band'. Asked where the name came from, Bertchold replied
YACHT is an acronym for “Young Americans Challenging High Technology,” which was the name of an after-school program that Jona Bechtolt participated in the early 1990s. YACHT was a short-lived organization that taught young people both to use technology and fear it — this conflicting, binary attitude towards technology has been a long-lasting influence for us. [source]
I'd like to take a moment to talk about YACHT's website. Freakin' cool. Love the aesthetic. It reminds me of the weird visualization that has defined They Might Be Giants' web efforts (though not the current iteration, sadly); not in the specifics, but in the weird and unexpected ways it uses graphics and design elements.
Taking some time to read the Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow sections, it becomes clear that YACHT is smart and possibly a little insane. Take, for example:
YACHT believes in reforming an adequate language by coining new words and examining the meaning of existing words. For example, Utopia means “No Place.” Thus YACHT understands its quest is in movement, not a resting point. For example, “I” is a story we tell ourselves. Thus YACHT seeks the undifferentiated collective experience. [source]
Music for Mondays
