Photo by Alex Marks.

It’s not a secret that Marfa, Texas, is a sacred place for us.

We first came here in 2004, compelled by the Mystery Lights, and then fell into a world of love with the West Texas desert, its people, and the eerie white moon that bathes the Agave plants at night. As of this writing, we have been coming back to Marfa regularly for almost six years: nothing compared to the old-timers out here, but the beginning of a lifelong relationship with this space.

In 2008, we lived in Marfa and recorded See Mystery Lights in a rented casita at the crossroads of Texas and Austin streets. We’ve been returning, in fits and starts, ever since. Star parties, tumbleweeds, white-washed adobe, cubes, Marfa agate and quartz, cold tequila and warm sun. This time around, we’ve been lucky enough to record at Marfa Recording Company, a beautiful studio built in a former cavalry base in the middle of the desert, a literal stone’s throw from the Chinati Foundation and perpetually surrounded by deer. Imagine it: Topo Chico, tumbleweeds, warm vintage amps, maybe ghosts, the Milky Way at night. Basically, it’s the Motown of the Far West Texas desert. We’ve never recorded in a studio before, and we are extremely dedicated to paying back the cosmic lottery with hard work — and we couldn’t imagine a better place to do it.

If you are a music-maker of any kind and you want to record something in a really special place, come here. We cannot recommend it enough. It’s a place where revelations happen.

These are ways that the sky looks out here: bright, cartoon blue, with cirrus clouds bleeding white from their edges. So profoundly dusty pink that the entire world is rose-colored for twenty minutes and people frantically run out the front doors of their houses to look outside. Incredibly black. Sick with stars and purple-grey. The moon so bright you can read the newspaper by the light of it. With whirling Mystery Lights on the horizon.

This experience has been axis two of a three-point Utopian recording endeavor. We began in Portland, Oregon, at Jackpot! Studio. When we leave Marfa, we will travel to Los Angeles to finish the album and complete the circuit. As the years pass, we become increasingly concerned with physicality, with battling the ephemeral spirit inherent to music and making YACHT into something that can be touched. The idea of the Triangle, still very important us, has moved from being a loose concept to something we’re physically tracing into the world: Marfa, Portland, and Los Angeles. The lines are invisible but the axes are very real.

These are books that we’ve been reading: Prometheus Rising by Robert Anton Wilson, Your Brain Is God by Timothy Leary, Dr. Bloodmoney by Philip K. Dick, Lucretius’ On the Nature of the Universe and The Book of the SubGenius.

Extra-special thanks to: Gory Smelley for the studio, Greyfeather, and everything, Baby Olive, Gina, Susannah Lipsey, Nicholas Miller, Tim Johnson, Adam & Krista, Steve Holzer, Alex Marks, Anthony Desimone, Frama, Rocky Barnette, Caitlin Murray, and Ryann Bosetti. We’ll be back soon.

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