shigeto

Zach 從小便浸染在密歇根的音樂(lè)里，他父親給他聽(tīng)古早時(shí)期的魔城靈歌和爵士唱片。他自幼習(xí)鼓，由于熱愛(ài)音樂(lè)，幾近從高中退學(xué)。此后，他先后在紐約、倫敦兩地各學(xué)習(xí)了三年爵士樂(lè)。在倫敦他開(kāi)始沉迷學(xué)習(xí)各種電子樂(lè)設(shè)備，隨后，他移居布魯克林，以 Shigeto 之名開(kāi)始嶄露頭角。 
《Semi-Circle》是他在 Ghostly International 下發(fā)行的第一張 EP，2010年11月他又在該廠牌下發(fā)行了全長(zhǎng)專(zhuān)輯“Full Circle”。Semi-Circle 是一張完全獨(dú)立的藝術(shù)創(chuàng)作，名義上是為了向器樂(lè)嘻哈致敬，但其實(shí)Zach在這一張專(zhuān)輯中就跨越了多種風(fēng)格——氛圍音樂(lè)的陰暗、早期IDM舞曲、Dubstep 的沉悶低音、爵士的旋律，這些元素如同調(diào)色盤(pán)上的不同色彩，被 Shigeto 信手拈來(lái)，鋪陳出豐富而又明快的細(xì)節(jié)。 
不少中國(guó)樂(lè)迷曾因《智利速降》這部山地自行車(chē)短片，而有幸聽(tīng)到 Shigeto 的音樂(lè)。
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 was released in November of 2010. 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.