There is no way I have enough words to tell you about this band within half a page. No chance. YACHT are indulging in a delicious threesome with the notion of musical convention … and giving it a right old shagging.
The ever-expanding realm of YACHT is an alternative world we urge you to explore. Synth pop duo Jono and Claire are self-confessed Generalists.
YACHT – Psychic City (Voodoo City)
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Directly fighting niche, they are a breathe of fresh air in a music industry of natural obsessives. They make space age pop released on New York’s DFA Records, a label that pushed them to conceptualise their messages and step away from mainstream notions, as Claire explains: “I mean, we consider over-specialisation to be an aspect of weakness and I think that a band is an evolutionary entity; if we focus too much on the band or the performance aspect of it, then I think we lose a little bit of our competitive spirit and some of our accomplishments”
Jono Bechtolt, founder of YACHT (stolen from an after-school club called Young Americans Challenging Technology) picks up the point: “It’s become an all-encompassing life project. And it now incorporates Claire. So that’s two life projects. We consider everything we do to be YACHT, like we collaborate on everything from breakfast to video, to music, everything. We don’t really consider ourselves to be artists or musicians. It’s more we’re Generalists”
In fact they are so general they don’t see the need for instruments. Unashamedly they have rejected the need to pretend to play electronic music by replacing laptops with sleek white microphones, infectious dance choreography and cute-as-fuck PowerPoint presentations. “Yeah, we don’t really see much difference between what we do without instruments and what a
band does playing memorised guitar chords,” claims Jono. “At least we are self-aware about that.”
Ripping pages from The KLF’s treasure map to pop acclaim, YACHT are indulgent. Writing manifestos on their generalisims, pamphlets on their policies, releasing their EPs on a copper masters (complete with white cotton archive gloves to avoid oxidisation), they go on to film videos challenging notions of the occult alongside jizzing metaphorically in the face of Catholicism. Clash are hooked.
YACHT bounce off each other like best friends, finishing each other’s sentences as the other unfurls the next bold conversational concept. Yet, they are in fact lovers, though that’s typically ambiguous. The only point that they are certain about is their need to skirt round specifics, as Claire rounds off: “People like guidelines and structure and I think people definitely need mystery – and a connection – but they often look for it in the wrong places, so we aim to provide a little alternative to that.”
Words by Matt Bennett
