LISTEN: Shigeto Live on Daytrotter
DOWNLOAD: "Huron River Drive" Soundcloud-mp3 / via Pitchfork
DOWNLOAD: "Lineage" direct mp3 / via Pitchfork

Ghostly International multi-instrumentalist and beatmaker Zach Saginaw aka Shigeto will soon be rolling out Lineage, the follow up mini-LP to the acclaimed Full Circle full length from 2010. It's out January 31st, 2012. Pitchfork recently premiered the smoke-filled head-nodder "Huron River Drive," and recent shows with Madlib and a coast-to-coast tour with Star Slinger put Saginaw's live show -- a stunning mix of live beat making with fiery live drum playing -- front & center. This is also on display in a brand new live session with Daytrotter, which hit today. 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. All of this considered, it's not for nothing that he named his forthcoming album what he did.

Artists take on pseudonyms for a multitude of reasons, but in Saginaw's case, those reasons run deeper than most. Shigeto is 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, with a signature backbone of live instrumentation techniques. He's added addtional tour dates in February, including dates with Ghostly labelmate Mux Mool, Low End Theory in Los Angeles, SXSW, and more.
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Shigeto - Live Dates
Feb 15 - Los Angeles, CA - Low End Theory @ The Airliner
Feb 16 - San Diego, CA - Kava Lounge
Feb 17 - San Francisco, CA - 1015 Folson*
Feb 18 - Missoula, MT - The Palace Lounge*
Feb 25 - Amherst, MA - Hampshire College*
Mar 14 - SXSW - Ghostly International Showcase LIVE SET**
Mar 15 - SXSW - Surefire Sound Showcase DJ SET
** w/ Tycho, Choir of Young Believers, Com Truise, Mux Mool, Shigeto
* w/ Mux Mool
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Click Here  for the Shigeto Daytrotter Session
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The front cover includes a photo of Shigeto's great grandfather's house from 1916 in Hiroshima, Japan while the LP/vinyl version of the back cover includes a photo of Shigeto Ohmura at the Amache Internment Camp in Grenada, Colorado after his family was transfered from Tule Lake Internment Camp. Following the attack on Pearl Harbor and the subsequent declaration of war against Japan many Americans believed that the Japanese-Americans were spies or traitors. This is how Shigeto's grandfather and other family members ended up in these camps. While only Saginaw could speak to the ancestral motivation being referenced on the eight instrumental songs that comprise Lineage, it's easy to see it as an acknowledgement of debt to musical forebears, reverent respect due to the jazz, hip-hop, funk and folk that animates these eight songs. And while these elements aren't new to Saginaw's work, never has he demonstrated such complete command of his material. Each song is a complex constellation of sounds and ideas, but his compositional focus and restraint grounds songs that are otherwise cosmically inclined.

"Lineage (Prologue)" eases into being with windchimes, effects, circular organ and little else, recalling a particularly subdued Sun Ra passage. That segues into "Lineage" proper, which props up the melody with shifty uptempo percussion and bass. "Ann Arbor Part 3 & 4" announces itself with lovely keys and falling rain before hip-hop beats steal the show. “Soaring” eases back into a handclap, acoustic guitar and harp sounds reverie, underpinned with lazy, spacey bass. Shigeto’s brilliant drumming takes center stage on “A Child’s Mind,” moving from a bombastic unaccompanied run into esoteric jazz and finally settling into a shuffling, prismatic hip-hop. Shigeto’s deft cymbal and snare work are also found on Huron River Drive, a dubby, smoky, soulful joint that dials back the lysergic digitalia that colors so much of the mini-LP as a whole. The title of “Field Trip” perfectly captures the adolescent joy and wonderment of the song, with live drums, ebullient toybox sounds and wide-eyed melodies. The understated “Please Stay,” which adds rare vocal sounds to Shigeto’s repertoire of claps and keys, gently guides listeners out of the journey through Lineage.

Shigeto was one of the first of a wave of young artists who grew up influenced by Ghostly’s early output. And again, names come into play. “Putting out these records 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.” Let’s just say the feeling’s mutual.
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Shigeto - Lineage
Out 1/31/12 on Ghostly International
Tracklist:
Lineage (Prologue)
Lineage
Ann Arbor Parts 3 & 4
Soaring
A Child's Mind
Huron River Drive
Field Day
Please Stay

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