Zagc - Saturation Interview

 

Saturation Mix 001: Zagc

Zagc is a producer and a DJ. He used to be the president of MEMCO until his term limit expired. He is from northern California but he isn't going to live there but he might live in Chicago or New York or Berlin. When he was 19 years old, he found a USB stick holding a copy of Ableton Live underneath his doormat. A voice told him not to care about gating reverb, nobody gaf. When listening to Zagc's music, unfinished basements expand into forests and strobe lights become fireflies. Here is what he has to say for himself. 

MEMCO:

Start at the very beginning.

Zagc:

Okay.

MEMCO:

When did you start making music?

Zagc:

I think like, the first time I ever created a recording was like four years ago, but I was using Audacity and I was just layering recordings I found on the internet on top of each other.

MEMCO:

What were you listening to when you started out?

Zagc:

Honestly, I don't really know what I was listening to four years ago. I think I was into like ***** **** and 100 gecs, which is embarrassing. I was also into Dua Lipa and Alvin and the Chipmunks. When I really started making electronic music, or dance music I guess, was three years ago. I was listening to a lot of hyperpop and a lot of breakcore and happy hardcore remixes of pop songs. I was like, this can also be music. So I feel like that was my next entry point.

MEMCO:

Is that when you started being Zagc?

Zagc:

My SoundCloud name <laugh> for like a year, I think, was Mousician, like musician, but instead of M-U-S it was M-O-U-S and my profile picture was a mouse in a wizard costume with a violin I think.

MEMCO:

Did you make that image?

Zagc:

Yeah, I made it on Photoshop. But yeah, that's when I started the same SoundCloud account I have now. And then later I called it Zagc. I decided recently, it's just pronounced Zach. But the point is that it's confusing when you read it. But you can say it however you want, whatever.

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MEMCO:

How has being at U of M and being in Ann Arbor had an effect on your music? 

Zagc:

I think MEMCO has had a big effect. I started making noise music. I used to want to play bass, I wanted to be in a hardcore punk band. I was kind of a little bit into techno, but not really. So coming back here and then joining MEMCO got me into the door of techno music. I think being near Detroit, and going there often and hearing the music they play there has definitely pushed me in that direction also. I think the biggest impacts of MEMCO are that I heard a lot of new music from people and I got the opportunity to DJ for others. But I think, in a pretty nebulous way, that the fact that MEMCO is entrenched in a community changed everything. That shapes the whole ethos for why we make music.

MEMCO:

What was the first show in Detroit you went to?

Zagc:

The first time I went to Detroit for electronic music, I went to some little room in the Russell and there were like 10 people there. Somebody was spinning vinyl, but I have no idea who. I think I was like 19. The first time I went to a real venue was when older people from MEMCO took us to the Tangent Gallery and it sucked. There were like four other people there and the music was bad and we were like, this is stupid. And then we went to Spot Lite and we saw Stacey Hotwaxx and that was awesome. I think that was maybe the first time I ever went to an actual club.

MEMCO · Saturation Mix 001 - Zagc

MEMCO:

You just played a mix. It was so fire.

Zagc:

Oh, thank you.

MEMCO:

Who is it for?

Zagc:

Whoa. That's a crazy question. Because I don't know. I just played over Movement weekend and I felt like, nobody asked for me to be here. Like there are people who are playing this weekend that people want, people are happy to go see. But I feel like a lot of the people who are DJing, nobody wants them to. Well, I guess, no, that's not my answer. <laugh> I think it's for my friends, mostly. I tried to play songs by people either I know or who are from Ann Arbor or from Detroit. I guess it's for people who want to hear different kinds of sounds.

MEMCO:

It's your dream party. What are the vibes? 

Zagc:

Well the biggest thing by far is that I want it to be in a room with no flat surfaces and no right angles. And the floor is a little bouncy. And there's incomprehensible organic forms on the walls and ceiling, like, everywhere. And then I want it to be full of people who are there to move their bodies in ways they've never moved them before.
I think there will be beats. Songs with a lot of texture. Sounds in the songs that are conducive to you being able to imagine that you're in a different place. And hopefully that works with this crazy room that we're in. 

MEMCO:

You've described yourself as an installation artist and you've made physical installations in the past. When you're making music, how much do you think about the space it's going to be played in?

Zagc:

I think about space a fair amount. Within dance music, some sounds really good played through small speakers in a house or in a park or something. Then some of it sounds good played through huge speakers in a huge room. Some songs kind of sound good in both places, but not really. 

I think that the song that I made for this EP mostly sounds good on small speakers in a small setting. I don't think it would really work on big huge speakers. But I'm starting to try to make music for huge speakers. So there's like that dimension of it. And then also I like to put field recordings into my beats. I want you to be able to imagine you're in a cool place regardless of where you hear it.

MEMCO:

Bugs?

Zagc:

It's not like I specifically just love bugs so, so much. I think it's more so that it’s a way to get to the point with most people pretty quickly. They represent so much. They're silly and they're funny and they have a lot going on if you look at them closely. It's easy to look at a bug and just see a bug. But if you look at it really closely, there's as much detail in that one tiny little thing as there is in the world.

MEMCO:

What bug would you be?

Zagc:

I really like ants because I like contraptions. A Bug's Life, the movie, was one of the most influential things I saw as a child. <laugh>  Because the bug is always making contraptions. So yeah, I like ants because they all work together. People will say that in a weird, like, fascist way, but that's not how I mean it. I saw some record label or something yesterday - it was like some scary techno label and they had some art on one of their albums with, like, an ant on the cover, but it was red or something. And it said, we are like ants because they all are the same and they all work together to crush the common enemy. I don't know, it was like twisting what bugs are all about. 

MEMCO:

Is there anything else you want to say? 

Zagc:

I feel like I've said a lot, so I don't wanna say more. 

MEMCO:

Okay.

Tracklist:

Brin - Soft Gaiden Baby G - Bug Simkin - Anarres Voiski, WAV & Wata Igarashi - Pronom COLA REN - Dusk Piper Fridge - Melodica and Trombone otodojo - Dance of the Singing Insect Audrey Danza Drums - HQ Xupid - Direct Dub Watermelon Man - I Care Because You Don't Terrence Dixon - Star Garden Deepchord - Pinewood Lodge Terence Fixmer & Claudio PRC - Lunar Forest Otomo Yoshihide & Sachiko M - Filament 1-3 Underground Resistance - Base Camp Alpha 808 (Original Mix) Xupid - stop being deep Zagc - ten thousand bugs Roberto Musci, Giovanni Venosta, Massimo Mariani - Broken Oxygen Arushi Jain - Richer Than Blood Zeena Parkins - Drumming Fase Bipolar - Nexus Strikes Back Plastikman - Gak Remix Brin & Josiah Steinbrick - lexus resist Sachiko M - Don't Push

Early Spring is out August 16