YACHT’s album is something of a game-changer in music production. Their new album Chain Tripping was created using A.I. to synthesize songs from their previous albums (as well as other songs they enjoy), which includes 82 pieces written over 17 years, and over 2 million words and hundreds of melodies. Once the A.I. got a feel for the language and sensibility of the band, this 10-song album is the product of duo Claire Evans and Jona Bechtolt chiseling away at the results of the amalgamation. To be clear, Evans cautioned during the set that the album was not, “designed by a robot,” but out of something she termed “the multi-dimensional latent space of our past…” reminding the crowd that “…artificial intelligence isn’t the future, but a different way of understanding the present…” Always at the intersection of technology, music and philosophy, YACHT is no stranger to using their music as a way to explore new conceptual avenues: from a live re-scoring of Ridley Scott’s Alien at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in 2017; to a controversial “sex tape” scandal in 2016; to launching their 2015 album I Thought The Future Would Be Cooler via Google Maps; to the launch of a LA-based activities app in 2014 called “Five Every Day;” to Evans’ steady output of TEDx talks, science journal publications and her book about the women who pioneered The Internet. This is all to say that YACHT’s set was something of a personal challenge, playing Chain Tripping in its entirety and then playing “the hits” like “I Thought The Future Would Be Cooler,” “Hologram,” “Le Goudron,” “Dystopia,” and closing with 4-on-the-floor “Psychic City”. Holding an amorphous space between Talking Heads, DEVO, modern synth (see: LCD Soundsystem, Cut/Copy, J.U.S.T.I.C.E. or Basement Jaxx) and Miami disco, their slick polished vibe brings it all together. Check out Chain Tripping here.
YACHT
