Production and vocals could not be any more perfectly matched on SAÍGO's latest, "The Other." His gentle voice dances over an effected sample and crisp percussion on the song, with the result being an overall feeling of mesmerizing melancholy.
"Lately, when I sit down to write a song, I'm overwhelmed by the news reports from around the world and I'm looking for a way to make sense of some small part of it," SAÍGO tells us via email. "I wrote 'The Other' after reading about the killing of a blogger in Bangladesh. He was the same age as me, and he was killed because he wrote about secular, democratic ideas and the dangers of religious hatred. I was disheartened and outraged to read about this and a spate of similar attacks. I thought about how much him and I might have had in common, and how there is so much to unite us if we can look past the conventional divisions of nations, politics, race and religion. At the core of this song is a dilemma we're all facing as the globe shrinks—either choose to expand the borders of empathy or choose to draw smaller and smaller circles of trust."
The thoughts behind it are serious, but "The Other" is a song you'll want to listen to on repeat, as SAÍGO hits the same heights as current artists who inspire him like Anderson .Paak, Nao, and Mura Masa. The song was co-produced by Jonah Christian and will appear on SAÍGO's debut EP, scheduled for release in early 2017. Listen to the premiere below.
