I am pretty touched that Chris Koltay snuck mentions of you into the Tape Op gear reviews for half a decade. That’s friendship.
Wow, I didn't even know that. I would say he's probably the only reason why I'm getting this interview. [laughter] Koltay is definitely my sonic guide. I came from an era of producers in the early MySpace age. That transition from using a proper studio with a bunch of gear, to a bunch of kids in their bedrooms with Ableton [Live], or [Propellerhead] Reason, or [Steinberg] Cubase, or FruityLoops [Now Image-Line's FL Studio]. Producers from that era were taking the very raw, over-compressed, in-the-red approach. It was the sound of the time and Chris opened up my ears and mind to this magic area where you are paying attention to the rules but also disregarding them to create something really original. Before, I was like, "I'm going to take this voice memo, smash the fuck out of it, and use that as the main part of the song." Chris got my mindset to recognize this deserves to be mixed really well. I was ignoring part of the craft, and I was a very stubborn laptop producer. I was kind of like, "Fuck it. Throw it away." I'm a jazz school dropout. When I started working with Chris, I started to realize – my wave shouldn't be a chocolate bar. It should have peaks, valleys, and all this character to it. I started hanging out with Chris and listening to a lot of different music from a lot of different time periods and recognizing what made that stuff sound so good. I think a lot of people don't realize how much your engineer and your front of house guy is making it happen.
Cherry Blossom Baby is a very precise, meticulous record. Clearly you learned something from Chris Koltay over time.
The first ideas of this record probably started in late 2018, and they were just little skeletons of tracks. It was me drum programming right into Reason. I would put out a little beat on the [Elektron] Machinedrum and play a [Roland] JUNO with a key part, bass part, and drum part. I started working with KESSWA [Kesiena Wanogho], who's the main vocalist on this record. It’s just as much her record as it is mine. She would lay down these little infectious phrases. This was all little, simple jams and tests laying the vocals over these tracks. In 2019 and 2020, everything got crazy – I dipped off the map, like we all did. I was watching way too much TV, and didn't have a sleep schedule. There was a moment where I was like, "Oh man, I really want to get guitar on this." I'd been working on this boogie-like roller skate track, and I really heard my friend Sasha [Kashperko] in it. This was in the middle of the pandemic, when we were completely quarantined. I sent him that rough version, and I asked, "Can you just send me a bunch of takes?" He did, and immediately my inspiration returned because it felt like working with people again, even though we weren't in the same room. I hit up Tim Shellabarger, who's a bass player for Will Sessions, a great funk and soul group here in Detroit. He laced these tracks with the most incredible bass. I just kept hearing more players on [the record]. I think the focus was to get players that were part of my life throughout this time. We had all cut our ties down immensely. Our circle became much smaller. Our time became much more valuable about who we were spending it with. We became more sensitive to vibes that we weren't vibing with. To tangent a little bit – this Shigeto thing has been a solo project for so long – me and the drums, then it became me touring around the world with Koltay. And then, right before the pandemic, I started bringing out Marcus [Elliot] and Ian [Fink]. I love what I've been doing. I put all this work in – but I come from jazz; I come from bands. I'm not reaching these moments of magic on my own. I needed to start playing with other people so I could feel good again, so I could feel creative, and so I could feel happy. Once I had all these friends involved, it created a natural, genuine excitement. It felt really powerful to have a platform where I could actually get all these friends involved. Additionally, I wanted to be able to use the last 10 to 15 years with Ghostly International [label] to uplift these incredible players, because there's no lack of talent. You're never going to hear all the great music. You're never going to hear all the great producers. Without the collaboration with these people, I don't think an album would have come out.
You have a track record as a community builder and being vocal about local DIY scenes being the only sustainable way forward. You did a few performances to support the Living Wage for Musicians Act over this last year.
