YACHT Sails to Fun Fun Fun Fest: An Interview

As stated on their website, "YACHT believes “Free Wi Fi” is not an advertisement of services, but a political statement." The duo of Claire L. Evans and Jona Becholt created the band, belief system and business that is YACHT (which stands for Young Americans Challenging High Technology). The latest album release, Shangri-La, continues similar to the four prior records, with heavy synth electronic beats to get people grooving and interesting lyrics to get people thinking. YACHT performs at Fun Fun Fun Fest this Friday on the Blue stage at 4:15pm.

You've defined a Western American Utopian triangle, which includes Marfa, Texas. Why Marfa? What meaning does Marfa hold for you and how has it influenced or guided YACHT, including the name of your previous album, See Mystery Lights?

Marfa has been the "spiritual home base" of YACHT since we visited in 2007 and experienced the Marfa Mystery Lights, a paranormal optical phenomenon that has been native to the region since people have been there to see it -- and undoubtedly before. The Mystery Lights showed us that irrational forces are still at work in our world, and that we -- as technologically-savvy self-navigating people -- don't have all the answers. After seeing the lights, we moved to Marfa and began a period of thinking and researching about mystery, magic, esotericism, and the history of human ritual, which eventually became the album See Mystery Lights.

What sort of themes and influences does your latest album, Shangri-la have? Certain ideas, places, other music?

After we made See Mystery Lights, we toured the world for several years discussing and disseminating the ideas contained in the album. We had countless conversations, and we discovered that our ideas had resonance, that people wanted to take our philosophy -- which advocates radical self-empowerment and the sense of self as part and parcel of the universe -- further. So we went back to work, thinking of how we could physicalize our ideas. Walk the walk, if you will. We focused on the notion of Utopia, which is essentially the ultimate iteration of ideas made physical: a utopia is a place made out of ideas, for the express purpose of living inside of them every day. That was the seed that began the project.

@ The Hard Rock San Diego 10.18 from Roxane Pahldad.

For the folks coming to see you play at Fun Fun Fun Fest in Austin, what can they expect in terms of a YACHT live show?

A YACHT show is not often the same twice, but you can expect the following: black, white, five people at a rotating cast of instruments, electronic sounds of unknown origin, video projections, microphone cables being manhandled, physical prostration, the laying on of hands, and a question-and-answer session.

What direction do you see YACHT heading in the future, for the music, recordings, shows, and beyond?

Every day is new. It's as though we set foot one night, back in the Far West Texas desert, on a dark road which has been leading us through the mountains, and we won't know what journey we've made until we look back and see it unfurled at our feet. That day will be the last day of our lives.