Anchorsong Shares Transfixing Pizzicato Cut 'Ancestors'

Anchorsong will release Cohesion on Oct 26 via Tru Thoughts and today shares "Ancestors", a track featuring pizzicato strings entwining themselves with a transfixing guitar hook. "Ancestors" debuted this morning at Magnetic, who called it "exquisite." The track is out tomorrow via all DSPs.

Inspired by traditional Indian percussion and '70s and '80s Bollywood film soundtracks, Anchorsong - AKA Tokyo-born, London-based artist Masaaki Yoshida - creates a psychedelic, danceable and free-spirited vernacular using electronic and acoustic instruments.

"I performed with string players a lot over the past few years, and I was trying to figure out how to adopt live strings into my composition," Yoshida says of "Ancestors". "Pizzicato is one of the techniques I frequently used, and it's featured on this track prominently. The repeated short riff is part of the melody and the rhythm at the same time. I wanted to blur the border between melody and rhythm, and the subtle indian drums in the background serves as the medium."

Cohesion is a reconceptualisation of rhythm as melody, pieced together with unwavering production, and divided into two parts to reflect the extroverted and introverted sides of the producer.

"The concept for the new record began to form when I found my favorite composers," Yoshida explains. "Sapan Jagmohan, Rajesh Roshan and Kalyanji Anandji became my favorites, and I devoured their catalogues. They're the masters of percussive pop."

Led by his interest in Indian percussion and a desire to develop this in an electronic context, Yoshida explored the world of Bollywood film soundtracks, and their distinctive sub-genres spanning from psychedelic rock to disco. The title and concept of the record were also inspired by the intricate processes involved in making it; "On this album, I tried to blur the border between rhythm and melody, hence it's title Cohesion. Indian percussions like the dholak and tabla are tuneable, and I mixed them with other vaguely pitched percussions like bongos or claves to make them sound like part of a melody."

Listen to "Ancestors" here: