It's been four years since their full-length I Thought the Future Would Be Cooler, but L.A. dance-punks YACHT have returned, embracing the future they once found disappointing. First off, the band has expanded into a trio, adding longtime collaborator Rob Kieswetter as a full member. Secondly, they've taken on a new approach to songwriting on their upcoming release Chain Tripping (out August 30th via DFA Records), utilizing open-source Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning programs, drawing from the band’s back catalog of 82 songs as source material. In a press statement, vocalist Claire L. Evans explains:
We wanted to find a way to interrogate technology more deeply... We saw this album as an opportunity to teach the machine our values, our history, our community, and our influences. This record is a product of a technological moment that is rapidly evolving. It taught us everything we wanted to know about ourselves: how we work, what moves us, and which ambiguities are worth leaning into. We didn’t set out to produce algorithmically-generated music that could ‘pass’ as human. We set out to make something meaningful. Something entirely our own.
Watch a lyric-based video for today's featured track below, crafted by visual artist Barney McCann using an AI-powered typeface named "Obsolete."
His typeface is a fluid expression of that neural network’s attempts to find the most efficient path from one latter to the next in any given sentence. The result is amorphous and rough-hewn text, a glimpse into computational processes usually hidden from view.
