By Taylor Benjamin Burgess
Rather than introduce the Portland electronic dance band YACHT conventionally, with a synopsis of their last album or a description of their music (because YACHT would encourage you to find that info on the internet), here are a couple excerpts from their book The Secret Teachings of the Mystery Lights, which they have been selling online and on tour:
“Yes, the Universe itself is God; science refuses to acknowledge this truth, and the churches hide it from us with the foils of ritual and history”
“There is no difference between the conflicts of individuals and those of the whole, other than scale. Our domestic arguments are rooted in the same human insecurities that cause wars.”
“God is the Universe and all it contains, including us, which makes each individual a member of a vast pantheon of small gods.”
Stylus caught up with the core duo of the band, Jona Bechtolt and Claire L. Evans, before their show at the Pyramid this past February. (You can find the review of the show here.)
Stylus: For this latest album, you’ve wrapped yourselves in a lot of mysticism, and you’re talking about seeing Marfa’s Mystery Lights* and you’re talking about life and the afterlife. How did that all come about?
Jona Bechtolt: Well it all came from the actual experience of the Marfa Mystery Lights, which I first saw alone in 2005. And then the very next day, I randomly met Claire. And… yeah. I felt like that was a very serendipitous event, seeing the lights and then meeting Claire the next day. Claire and I became fast friends through Rob [Von Kieswetter, a.k.a. Bobby Birdman]. Then a year later, Claire and I went back to Marfa, saw the lights together, and through that shared experience, we decided right there and then that we had to move there. We had no intention of making an album, or even music, per se, we just wanted to go there and see what it was like to live amongst the lights on like a day-to-day level.
Claire L. Evans: It had a profound effect on us in a lot of ways. We saw it with our own eyes—there’s binoculars out on the side of the road that the county put out there because it’s something that everyone’s going to notice. It’s like some sort of collective hypnosis or mass hysteria—it’s a real thing. And we’d never experienced something that was that real and also abstractly mysterious or inexplicable.
Jona Bechtolt: Right, as you were saying before [the interview], we love the internet. So we consider ourselves to be net natives, and we have the information at our fingertips. Anything you want to know, you Wikipedia or Google and you have an answer immediately. So this was something that was very real and unexplainable.
Stylus: On your latest album, you’re using a lot of reoccurring symbology, you were talking about triangles, and Claire, you have a triangle ring—
JB: And we both have triangle tattoos. [They roll up their sleeves, and at the top of their forearm they each have an equilateral triangle—Evans’ is Black, and Bechtolt’s is white.]
Stylus: But do you think it’s important to create those symbols? Why do you think it’s important to have triangles everywhere when YACHT play?
CLE: We both found in the course of our long post-Marfa Lights research, which after we saw the lights, we got deeply into studying ritual history.
JB: Fringe religious cultures.
CLE: Cults, secret societies, esotericism, mysticism. For some reason it really piqued an interest in us, and we found that probably the most consistent reoccurring thing was the fact that the language of symbolism was profoundly important to any proper mystery school, any proper esoteric or fringe religious experience. And consistently, triangles came up a lot. You know, the Freemasons and the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. And then of course, the ancient Egyptians, the Babylonians, the Assyrians, Pythagorean—I mean the triangle has come up so much to the point that we realize that that it’s one of humanity’s most universal symbols. It has something about the idea of a trinity or a triad, or a triangle has some kind of—we don’t know what it is, we haven’t unlocked it or unpacked it, but it has resonance that we found would probably work well for us. We realized that we wanted to have a symbol for the band because of our deep love of punk music. And how most, if not all, influential punk bands have these symbols that aren’t even logos, they’re really symbols, and it’s almost like some kind of tribal marker of identification. Like Black Flag’s stripes or the Germs’ circle—
JB: Crass.
CLE: You see them wearing that on a shirt, or tattooed, or on a patch—that doesn’t represent, “Oh, I’m into the Dead Kennedys.” It means that I am advertising myself as being part of a culture that transcends fashion and style and genre of music. It’s part of something bigger—it’s about ideology, personal philosophy, the choices that you decided to make, how you decided to pull yourself apart from the rest of the world. We want people to have that with our band—not that we want our band to be like punk music is, to have that profound cultural relevance, but we do like the idea that someone could wear a triangle and it would advertise not that they were into YACHT, but that they were a part of whatever culture it is that they decided to take from us. Or that we decided to build. I mean we’re trying to build some sort of alternative community that has a slightly punk spirit. It’s an evolving goal.
*The Marfa Lights are unexplained lights that appear, occasionally and unpredictably, in the night sky over a specific plot of land near the town of Marfa, Texas.
Meshuggah play a style of music unlike any other. Their complexity is not due to them performing well; rather it has to do with the unusual time signatures used in their songs. Don’t expect to ever hear something in 4/4 at 120 BPM in one of their songs (unless it’s in an odd number of bars). What you should expect is to hear the guitars, bass, and even the drums playing in three completely different time signatures and only syncing up every 12 bars. It might even hurt your head to listen to but it’s all mathematically correct. With that in mind, try to imagine the difficulty in performing such a feat live. Sounds hard, but Meshuggah has been doing it for years and they have archived some recent tour dates on a new live DVD. The performances were recorded in Tokyo, New York, Toronto, and Montreal. As cool as it is to have Canada represented in over half of the songs, it may have been a better choice to use only the Tokyo footage. The stage in Tokyo was the largest, and best of all they had a camera on a track in front of the barricades moving back and forth, catching everything onstage up-close. Even if the other cities had better audio recordings, the visual appeal of the Tokyo footage would have made up for it. The only visual advantage of the smaller venues is that the stage was better lit because the lights were not spread as wide apart. Between each song was backstage footage and brief interviews, some relating to performing a show, some related to songwriting. It is a relatively enjoyable DVD about a very unique band. If you have never heard Meshuggah before, you probably should, not because you might like them but rather they’re a good point of reference. (Nuclear Blast, 
Taking the stage on Austin City Limits this time are Drive-By Truckers. First of all, I’ll get the technical aspects out of the way; the visual quality is good. It looks nice on the big screen television at my house, and the audio quality is great in my home theatre system. You can hear every instrument being played in detail. But what you really want to hear about is the music. The Drive-By Truckers could have very easily stormed the stage, and unleashed a three-guitar southern rock attack that could have made the studio look like it was hit by a tornado when they were through, but instead they opt to do a slow-building set. They start off very soft, very folk rock, and then build up from there, reaching the peak in the middle with “Putting People on the Moon,” a seven-minute southern rock epic that Lynyrd Skynyrd would be proud of, and “Space City,” one of the best country ballads you’ll hear anywhere. This CD/DVD set made me a fan of Drive-By Truckers (even though the CD contains only half of the 26 tracks on the DVD). (New West Records, 
The spelling above is not me showing signs of inevitable mental decline. This review isn’t as fair as it should be because I have heard brokeNCYDE before. They had a single that was so awful that people posted it on each others’ Facebook walls, trying to best each other by seeing who can make it closest to the end. So, I have actually heard them. This leaves me with the shittiest of aftertastes, something that gargling with Drano can’t even fix. BrokeNCYDE appear to be four douchebags who try too hard to be hip (to be square). Left to right, they’re sitting in the back of a yellow van drinking the following: unidentifiable microbrew, Patron (which is expensive as hell up in Canada, but fairly cheap in the States. You ain’t foolin’!), MGD, and a can of Crunk. I shit you not, a can of Crunk. And speaking of Crunk, mix unhealthy amounts of that with the “one guy singing, one guy screaming” thing that Alexisonfire does, add a high school notebook full of verbal diarhea, and throw it naked into a shower in a male prison. You got the idea yet? Here, try this shit: “I love it when you tease me! / You make it seem so easy! / You make my PP hard!/ You make my PP hard!” (“Sex Toys!!!”) No? How ’bout: “Kickin’ it baby, get crunk get crazy / All fucked up, make me wanna punch babies.” (“40 oz.!!!”) The exclamation marks are all there, the only thing you’re missing is that the letter “N” is always rendered backwards. Hardcore. After you can’t handle reading along to this white-boy raprock by douche-drizzles that have neither ever heard rap or rock, you’ll close the liner book. One of these twats dressed up his senile granpappy like the “Pretty Fly for a White Guy” guy, complete with oversized red plastic goblet Bedazzled® with the word “PIMP.” Goes to show that douchebaggery don’t age well; it just wrinkles and smells like VapoRub and gauze. But this review doesn’t do the thing justice. I recommend that EVERYONE who happens across this turd put on gloves and examine and marvel at how a piece of shit like this made it into the world. (The boys in “quality control” should be fed to bears.) Tell your children and your parents that such tripe exists. Steady your hand and take a cell phone camera pic as valid proof. But for the love of music, never, EVER push play. (Break Silence Recordings, 
I will fully admit that the name of the band was the reason I chose to review this CD. After doing some research, here is what I can tell you about Gypsophilia. They are a seven-piece band from Nova Scotia whose sound is a mix of gypsy jazz and traditional Jewish folk music, with a little bit of classical and indie thrown into the mix. They have been a fixture at jazz festivals across Canada, including the Winnipeg Jazz Festival, since their debut album was released in 2007. I was a little disappointed when I first played the CD; I found the first track to be too slow-paced for my liking, but I cleared that hurdle, I found myself enjoying the rest of the album’s more upbeat sound. Tracks like the aptly titled “Jewish Dance Party!” will make you want to clap your hands and find the nearest person or chair to dance with, while other tracks like “A Oha” let you sit back and admire the sounds that these musicians create. The best jazz albums should give you a taste of what the band is capable of live, since jazz is always best when it is improvised live. If you are looking for a unique jazz record, Sa-Ba-Da-Ow! should satisfy your cravings until the band returns to the jazz festival in your city. (Independent, 
I know these guys have said that they like Fugazi and a number of other bands on Dischord Records, but I still hear hints of Pavement in some songs—especially in the upbeat intro and the grandiose guitar duel of title track “The Sun Hot.” However, Pavement didn’t take themselves seriously. Singers Jesse Hill and Cole Woods trade off vocal duties quite smoothly, having two distinct voices, and they sing a wash of nice wide chords when the two blend them together. Their lyrics are mostly concerned with nostalgia, (which I find really ironic since not all of the band members have graduated from high school yet) but they yearn for a memory-filled past well. As a group, Right Through are never out of step with one another and their musical chops really shine through on The Sun Hot, which is best at its really moody moments. It’s awesome that these guys have taken their angst and channelled it into something like a disc like this. (Independent, 
’Peg City favourite son Greg MacPherson is now onto his sixth album, and with Mr. Invitation he scores big points for once again keeping it all very real. G-Mac doesn’t really fit into any neat musical categories, and that is most likely by his own design. We the listeners are the benefactors of this rather iconoclastic stance. As usual, urban angst looms large in the songs. MacPherson has the keen ability to write delicate songs, dug directly from his own first-person experience, and make them keenly universal in scope. Whether he’s riding a bus in “West End,” considering geographical relocation in “Visitor,” or just taking stock of his situation in “Traveling Style,” the songs are usually about some kind of forward motion. The heart-on-sleeve attitude that MacPherson delivers isn’t a weakness either. This is a guy that allows difficult emotions to simmer to the surface and then deals with them with consideration—something that the alpha males of the species should be advised to try once in a while. MacPherson’s band deserves special mention, especially nimble-fingered guitarist Steve “Batso” Bates and thinking-man’s percussionist Jason Tait (of the Weakerthans). Both these cats understand that MacPherson’s music is about understatement buoyed by the strength of conviction, and that is exactly how they play. Bates’ playing comes off like daubs of colour in a sometimes-grey bleak landscape, while Tait actually “plays” his kit rather than just banging away at it. The album sounds good, too. The production is airy and bright and even when the band is kicking out the jams a little bit it always sounds clean and present. MacPherson deserves all this at this stage in his career. He has worked long and hard getting to where he really needs to be to attract an even wider base of fans. This album should get him there. (Smallman Records, 
Local weirdo-rocker Steve Basham’s follow-up to his previous solo disc Thick comes at you with the same lo-fi hilariousness that his music collective Mortfell Oktorium are known for. The first cut, “Bored Like a Dinosaur Robot with His Magical Pet Dog,” is an hilarious tale of honesty and intrigue in which Basham laments about writing songs because he’s bored until he starts another year of art school. That sets the stage for a series of rockin’ playful songs about underwater spiders and dead whales. With help from his Mortfell bandmates J.R. Hill and Toby Gillies, Basham’s songs are a lot catchier and thoughtful than his previous efforts without losing their charming silly spirit. (Mortfell Oktorium, 
This band mixes an interesting blend of heavy thrash with upbeat power metal. The only difference between them and most power-metal influenced bands is their lack of cheesy-ness. OK, there are a few comic high wails and some of the lyrics might make one question their seriousness. The most impressive attribute of this album may be the vocals because they quickly switch instantaneously from beautiful three-part harmony to death growls and vicious shrieks. The complexity of the guitars is used to make fast-paced melody tht is complemented by the occasional hardcore breakdown, but even during those there is usually soloing of some kind. This band may be what a non-metal listener thinks of when someone uses the term “Heavy Metal.” It ticks all the boxes of the old and new requirements of metal. (Nuclear Blast,