I’ve been enjoying Sun Glitters’ most recent EP Mouth / Tight and was drawn into Zach Saginaw’s remix of the song “Mouth”. I’m writing to offer some more visibility to Zach and his work.
Zach goes by the pseudonym “Shigeto,” which is both his middle name and the first name of his grandfather. This bit of background and more is covered in his profile at Ghostly International. Ghostly is a Michigan-based record label that also works with emerging electronica artists like Com Truise, Mux Mool and Phantogram.
Shigeto released Lineage, a mini-LP, around this time last year which covers jazz, hip-hop and funk in eight songs. Here’s a link to stream the first track from the album online.
Prefix Magazine did an interview with Shigeto this past June. They asked him about a variety of things including the impact technology and greater accessibility are having on making music today. For example, if everyone can make and release music, what will become of music quality? In Zach’s response he broadened the impact to cover creativity overall:
“But all creativity — whether it be fine art, or graphic design, or music — the bar is going to be raised. We’re going to start creating art in ways we never thought imaginable. Interactive things, like creating sounds that we could never fathom. The good stuff is going to be mind-blowing because of the technology we have.”
-Zach Saginaw
I think he’s right. The bar is going to be raised on creatives everywhere and the results will be astounding.
Another fun part of the Prefix interview is where he tells a story of his plane’s engines exploding 10,000 feet over Budapest:
“The cabin filled with black smoke, all the lights went off. I looked outside — it was a propeller plane — and I saw the propellers slow down, then stop at fucking 10,000 feet in the air. Everyone started screaming, the flight attendants freaked out. Everyone said we’re going to die. The plane started to go down, and at that moment I thought it was over. I had a calming, movie-like sensation where everything around me became quiet and white.”
Needless to say, the plane made it done safely. Read the whole story and get to know Zach more in Interview: Shigeto.
I take discoveries of new artists as small gifts and hope that this entry taught you a bit more about an artist who is working on something great. I’ll be following Zach’s work and hope you will too.
I write about music and technology regularly on my twitter feed, @jetsetter.