YACHT - SXSW, Emo's, 3/12/08



On his website, Jona Bechtolt describes YACHT as "makers of fine grunge and hugs". On his myspace page it's "crunk/grunge/r&b". I'm not sure if words can adequately describe exactly what it is YACHT does, but a friend of a friend recommended this, and while I've not seen anything quite like it before, I found it infectiously compelling. The music was all pre-recorded and played on the computer, prominently displayed onstage. Jona and Claire Evans jump up and down, dance, sing, and jump up and down. A lot. Their energy is inspiring.



On musicOMH.com, Justin de la Cruz offers as good a description as I've found:

Dance music is all about making repetition intense and interesting. Taking a lead from musical hybrids LCD Soundsystem and M.I.A., YACHT intersperses sections of pop and rock into instrumental loops of dance music, resulting in a rather enjoyable mix of elements designed to hold the listener's attention throughout 45 minutes of dense mixes.



The music is loud and repetitive, as are most of the lyrics, one song consisted of the chant "Everything is fucked, so what we gonna do" over a deep house dance mix with live vocals. After a while, even the resistant mind opens to (or maybe is worn down by) this and the effect is ultimately enjoyable. One of the aspects of SXSW that I'm liking a lot is the potential for unforeseen and unique musical experiences such as YACHT.

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Comments

Justin DLC said…
Hey, thanks for the complement! The small things like this mention -- found from a bout of self-Googling, I admit -- make it worthwhile to keep writing about music.

YACHT is coming to my town later this month, and I will definitely go.

(This was my first review for music OMH. Ahh, the reminisces...)
3/04/2009
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