Yacht: repeat after them

Forget the English style guide; their name is ALL CAPS. Their logo is an open-ended triangle. They hold massive PowerPoint presentations and audience Q&As around the world. They have a full-blown mission statement and codified set of beliefs declaring they ‘‘seek to expand awareness of extraterrestrial intelligence.’’ An offshoot of Scientology? Typographic cult? Reptilian humanoids in disguise?

Not quite. It’s rather that Jona Bechtolt and Claire L. Evans think traditional rock’s posturing and performances are fairly pedestrian and yawn-inducing. So the eclectic musicians, who go by the moniker YACHT, reject all the dogmatic rules that govern band worship by playing shows where the audience can participate. ‘‘There are these codified ways people go about achieving whatever transcendence they get out of live music – how they act at the concert, how they stand, how they talk in between songs,’’ says Evans. ‘‘We want to show people that whatever they’re expecting and experiencing is not at all a concert, so they can act however they’d like. They can forget the rules they’ve been taught through years of attending rock concerts.’’

Whether people take this revolutionary concert etiquette business literally or with the proverbial grain of salt, a heaping tablespoon of whimsy shouldn’t eclipse the real breakthrough, which is the music. Bechtolt, former half of Portland indie-pop outfit The Blow, has refined his own band’s cheerful art pop on its fourth outing, See Mystery Lights. The bouncy album features an assortment of syncopated space jams and tongue-in-cheek, psychedelic mantras. It’s YACHT’s first effort on DFA Records, and welcomes Evans on board as an official band member.

Astral enigmas, cyberspace apologias
Their partnership was cemented after the pair visited the town of Marfa in the West Texan desert in 2007 to investigate the unexplained goings-on in the sky (see album title). ‘‘Claire and I are children of the information age, so anytime we have questions about anything, we just Wikipedia or Google it, and there’s the answer,’’ says Bechtolt. ‘‘But there I was in front of something so real and mysterious, it just blew my mind. We decided right away that we needed to live in Marfa to understand what life was like with that daily phenomenon."

Aside from its obvious paranormal and psychic fixations, the album also celebrates the wonders of the Web (‘‘We Have All We’ve Ever Wanted’’). It’s a fitting ode to technology from a band that has seen kids around the world rip its tracks. ‘‘We make it a point not to come out against piracy because it’s not motivated by malice or greed,’’ says Evans. ‘‘Millions of people around the world want to live beyond their means and be part of culture if they don’t have access to it. It deeply humbles and thrills me to know that people have access [to our music] no matter where they live. It’s so democratizing.’’

March 6th 
Belmont |4483, St-Laurent
with Bobby Birdman and MNDR
teamyacht.com