Shigeto - Weighted EP

September 28, 2018 - Ghostly International

It’s rare that the first second of a track pisses me off. Usually, the task requires a series of lazy chord progressions, banal lyrics hoping to out-thesaurize its listener into admiration, or Nicki Minaj interrupting an otherwise great track by not being Cardi B. But my man Shigeto, with athletic ability, manages this within the first bar. The four remaining minutes of ‘Fight Club,’ glides by while I ponder my anger, such that I have to restart the track at the beginning just to make sure I give the rest of the song a fair review. It’s a weak start to the Detroit-loving artist’s new EP, Weighted. I am reminded of playing around with an early version of Ableton Live as a young man with his first MacBook, a practice which I highly encourage, but don’t want to listen to.

Getting a grasp on what Shigeto is attempting here is the real challenge. The track has the freewheeling temperament of Jazz or Jam—but there is so little conveyed that I hesitate to call it either. The beats become more intricate and overdriven to the point that I’m genuinely worried about Shigeto. So I do the thing I like to do and search for meaningful intersections between the title and the nuances in the music. Even still, ‘Fight Club’ feels like an alarmingly cryptic phone call from a decent, if now-estranged friend. 

‘Ooh Ooh,’ the second track, wastes no time providing comic relief. Not that I’m less worried, but the mood is at least lightened, the urgency lessened. The track’s arrangement has such a bizarre simplicity—it seems that Shigeto is fighting his own approach to music making. The opening is an attention grab of dissonant rubbery percussion. But the reveal is closer to a lesson out of a Rock n’ Roll music booklet. Light inserts of syncopation and light synth warbles paired with a fuzzy bass line takes ‘Ooh Ooh’ to an incomplete indie track badly missing a female vocal lead. The track ends with a bit of off-color humor as the drumsticks are audibly dropped before the synth has finished its outro—it’s Seinfeld funny, meaning only sort of funny and pretty muted, but it’s funny.

Despite his efforts to convince me everything is fine, Weighted’s third track,‘The Line Up’ does the opposite. It’s his most liberated track, which I don’t mean in a comforting way. ‘The Line Up’ is solo-y without merit and thematically cohesive for that reason. From long Miles Davis-harkening runs up and down the keyboard and long snare rolls of varying licks comes the sound of a man looking for greater company.

The final track is a remix of ‘Detroit Part II’ by Andres. I wish I knew if Shigeto was running from or effortfully leaning into this more traditionally arranged format throughout the Weighted EP since the answer would completely influence my angle of concern. There’s nothing to say about the final track that hasn’t been said about the entire EP. This could be a clunky transition project that contains the unsure footing of an artist changing gears. However, the mystique and oomph with which Shigeto’s more memorable tracks have been richly laden are distinctly missing here. That being said, the releases that followed Lineage have been slow and steady on this trajectory. All one can do is hope. I’m here if you need me. ⛰️