Lineage

The Brooklyn, N.Y.–based electronic producer and drummer Zachary Shigeto Saginaw does a U-turn with his 2012 mini-album Lineage. Where 2010’s Full Circle was overwrought with frantic rhythms and distorted synth outbursts, Lineage is an immediately mellower outing. “Lineage (Prologue)” opens with warbling tremolo tones undulating alongside the campfire crackle of dusty vinyl-record ambience. The proper title track has looped rimshots clicking and clacking under shuffling rhythms and fluttering synthesizer tones. All this is punctuated by a jazz-rooted foundation—part of Shigeto's upbringing in Ann Arbor, Mich. For “Ann Arbor Part 3 & 4,” vintage Wurlitzer tones hum and curl alongside timeless piano notes and instrumental hip-hop patterns. It vaguely recalls a time in the early '90s when acid jazz buzzed through the pages of British music magazines. Following a flutter of stormy analog-synth cacophony, “A Child’s Mind” expands on jazzy soundscapes with double bass and a snare tight enough to bounce a quarter off of.