Our LP, “YT//ST” is out now on Psychic Handshake Recordings. Listen to the whole album on our Bandcamp page: http://yamantakasonictitan.bandcamp.com/
Come to our LP Release Party on Oct 1 2011, at Eastern Bloc, Montreal w/ D’eon, Panopticon Eyelids, Outdoorsmen & Ledges,Blast. More details HERE
The new YTST LABS is up. Expect some crazy good news soon.
YT//ST was founded in late 2007 by performance artists alaska B and Ruby Kato Attwood, born from the ashes of the late Lesbian Fight Club. Armed with mixed-race identities, mad illustration skills and a whole pile of home-brew junk electronics, alaska and Ruby wrote and performed the first mini 'Noh-Wave' Opera, 'YAMANTAKA // SONIC TITAN I' in April 2008. YT//ST continued to perform short homebrewed operas, eventually forming a network of Asian and Indigenous artists through collaboration and formed the current YT//ST collective. Montrealers had come to know YT//ST by their dazzling musical theatre performances in giant monochrome paper sets, sometimes in far out places, like the Montreal Eaton Centre Food Court at 2AM. Aesthetically, they blend the poorly appropriated styles of Noh, Chinese Opera, Chinese, Japanese and First Nations Mythology, Black & White Television, Psychedelia & Rock Operatics into a sensory feast of nigh-monochromatic costuming, unique hand-built musical instruments and their own mangaesque cardboard 'NEVERFLAT' style of 2.5D set design. YT // ST continues based in both Montreal & Toronto
2011 is a big year for YT//ST, as they complete their first full-length Opera, 'STAR', and release their first full-length LP on Psychic Handshake this summer. Several music videos are in the work, as well as a Canadian tour. Look forward to numerous projects coming to fruition.
The collective functions as a mutating and constantly evolving art cult that brings together individuals of Asian, Indigenous & Diasporic identity to perform/create as a collective. Working in multiple mediums including Installation, Theater, Music, Video, Animation, Illustration and Design, YT//ST negotiate cultural clashes between dominant cultures and those whose traditions are oppressed, erased or being eclipsed. We retell the mythologies, customs and stereotypes of our ancestors with our cartoon bodies as their vessels. We choose to replace colonial representations of ourselves and our histories with our own self-identification. We might dabble in pseudo-occult practices on occasion but they don't seem to do anything.
Back in Christmas 2009, fresh off of alaska’s departure from Montreal, YT//ST reformed as a two piece to perform at COOL FEST 09 in Eastern Bloc. We recorded two songs off of the board. You can also see footage from this show on our promo video by Derrick Belcham.
For the entirety of July 2008, YT//ST installed a giant cardboard set inside of Articule’s front window. We had to get the windows cleaned afterwards due to many enthralled children leaving behind hand & face prints.
(YT//ST loves to receive letters from babes, hotties and bloggers. We also like cupcakes, instant noodles and heavy metal, which is all the food that the collective members have lived off of since our founding. At one point we drank enough energy drinks to qualify for a sponsorship, but since we've all had stern warnings from our YAMANTAKA // SONIC DENTIST, we've been forced to switch over to healthier alternatives, such as a cold bucket of water or a slap to the face.)
YAMANTAKA // SONIC TITAN LABORATORIES is designed and administered by alaska B, 2011
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