Mixed by Lifeline, Shigeto, Nooka Jones
Shigeto (Ghostly International | NYC)
Artists take on pseudonyms for a multitude of reasons, but in Zach Saginaw’s case, those reasons run deeper than most. Zach records under the name Shigeto. It’s his middle name; it’s also his grandfather’s name, a tribute to the Japanese branch of Zach’s family tree. Shigeto also means “to grow bigger”—appropriate, given Zach’s premature birth-weight of less than a pound. Today, Shigeto stands for Zach’s vividly beautiful electronic music. Beat- driven but given to richly textured sound design, rhythmically fractured but melodically sumptuous, Shigeto’s music is a bridge between the past and present, bringing the artist face to face with a creative legacy that spans decades. Zach was brought up on a steady diet of Michigan-bred music, as his father spoon-fed him old Motown and jazz records by the crateload. Zach picked up the drums at an early age, spending much of his childhood playing in the Detroit/Ann Arbor music scene. After nearly flunking out of high school—save for his music studies—Zach spent three years studying jazz at the New School in NYC and three more in London, where he began woodshedding, obsessed with learning electronic production. Soon enough, beats materialized, Zach moved to Brooklyn and took up the name Shigeto, and Zach’s peers began to take notice.Zach’s body of work has grown over the last few years to the tune of several EPs on Moodgadget as Shigeto and with A Setting Sun, a pair of EPs under the alias Frank Omura (another family-name reference), and remixes for Worst Friends, Praveen & Benoit, Tycho, Mux Mool, Charles Trees, A Setting Sun, Beautiful Bells, Shlohmo, and more. The Semi-Circle EP will be his first release with Ghostly International; the full-length Full Circle is on the horizon. Semi-Circle is a fiercely independent work of art, nominally indebted to instrumental hip-hop but, like Zach, straddling many worlds at once. Cool shades of ambient music, stuttering early IDM, dubstep sub-bass, and jazz melodicism color Shigeto’s palette, which he wields with a painterly attention to detail. As Ghostly International hits its 10th anniversary, Shigeto is one of the first of a wave of young artists who grew up influenced by the label’s early output. And again, names come into play. “Putting out this record on Ghostly isn’t just ‘getting signed,’ for me,” says Zach, “it’s becoming part of a family, an influence that I’ve respected forever. That’s Full Circle.” Let’s just say the feeling’s mutual.
Shigeto tracks are available for download in mp3 and wav format on halcyondigi.com
Praveen Sharma (Casette / Percussion Lab | NYC)
Praveen Sharma has been making music for most of his life, and has contributed releases to AI, Neo Ouija, and Expanding Records. He also runs Percussion Lab, a hub for underground electronic music and exclusive DJ sets, in addition to being an avid live performer and event organizer in New York City. Praveen released his debut Backed by Spirits on the now-defunct Neo Ouija imprint in early 2005. Not long after, Praveen returned from a profound journey through his family’s native India with a minidisk full of field recordings and voices, forming the basis of Song Spun Simla, his second album released with Benoit Pioulard. His most recent work with Machinedrum under the alias Sepalcurehas garnered international acclaim and a solid string of releases thru the infamous Hotflush label headed byScuba. Their mix of Tribal Dub, House and Two-Step beats works equally well for both late nights in the club and rainy, introspective nights at home. Detroit Techno chords cut through wooden beats, neon synths and dubbed out atmospherics, leading the always looking for the next thing music press to coin the term “Love Step” to describe Sepalcure’s effect. www.percussionlab.com