| Popmatters |
 Anthem of the Trinity, YACHT’s mixtape of the influences behind their 2008 album See Mystery Lights, drew from music by Nirvana, Outkast, Bad Brains, Snoop Dogg, Terry Riley, Talking Heads, Joy Division, B-52s, LCD Soundsystem, and others. That seemed like a motley crew but made sense—in a way you could hear all of that in the album. I imagine a list of the influences behind their new album Shangri-La wouldn’t be radically different, because the album doesn’t sound radically different. It does feel more focused in a particular direction—those last four bands mentioned above seem particularly pertinent. There’s a strong air of the post-punk ‘80s, and at the same time, the album’s driving rhythms make it more DFA-like in spirit, like they’re taking up part of the mantle of the now-defunct LCD Soundsystem, perhaps.
See Mystery Lights was more overtly eclectic. The more upbeat numbers like “Summer Song” are a good starting place for Shangri-La, though, for all its tight dance rhythms, there’s also a lot of darkness in the sound. For one, it’s not just beats that kick and punch; the intricate bass and guitar-playing are just as attention-getting, and where a lot of the post-punk feeling comes from—well, that and the vocals. Thought YACHT founder Jona Bechtolt does occasionally sing, newer member Claire L. Evans is mostly singing lead here, and stridently so, like she’s leading a mass movement....full text |
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| Culturebully |
Shangri-La is the second album featuring YACHT as an eclectic two-piece, and the fifth overall. As a follow up to their 2009 release, See Mystery Lights, Shangri-La is another highly danceable release loaded with electronic stomp and catchy rants. The idea that this is a concept album about Utopia and a Utopian society is an interesting move, but more importantly YACHT has given us another album to be categorized and filed under: FUN.
“All animals have souls guiding their bones,” shouts Jona Bechtolt halfway through “I Walked Alone,” and you can’t dance without a soul. After Coachella 2011, word spread about the most recent version of YACHT’s evolving stage show, one that’s come a long way since simply dancing around a PowerPoint presentation, and one that has helped establish the group (which is expanded in the live setting) as a supplier of party music and good times. If ever a heated debate stirred about the difference between pop and party music, this album would be an asset....full text |
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| Avclub |
| Heaven, Talking Heads once argued, isn’t the most happening neighborhood in the afterlife. YACHT’s Shangri-La doesn’t subscribe to that theory—though it does take a few songs for Jona Bechtolt and Claire L. Evans to blow the doors off their disco at the edge of Zion. Nonetheless, as a loose concept album built around notions of utopia, apocalypse, enlightenment, and true love (based on musical blueprints left by sainted influences like the Heads and YACHT’s label bosses in LCD Soundsystem), Shangri-La is completely justified in its delayed gratification. Such topics are dance-music standbys as hoary as four-on-the-floor beats and neon-streaked synthesizer textures, and Shangri-La doesn’t do much to breathe fresh life into them. But in its own naïve way, YACHT rejuvenates the scenery in this vision of paradise by casting things in an extremely literal light. Yes, the ideal of euphoric, collective musical release is at the core of “Paradise Engineering” and the pocket epic “I Walked Alone”—but those tracks are also rooted in science-fiction-damaged images of a crumbling society stumbling toward transcendence. Like the sequential lyrics of the record’s “One Step,” the entirety of Shangri-La threatens to turn cloyingly twee, but Bechtolt’s itchy sonics and Evans’ husky deadpan maintain a straight face amid the record’s otherworldly premise. Their heaven is a place where nothing new ever happens—though there’s always a reason to crowd the dance floor. ...full text |
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