Zach Deputy

Maybe I’m just out of the loop but until I discovered this artist I wouldn’t have used the word “ninja” to describe music. God knows that I can be behind the times, it took me nearly five years to get into The XX and I’ve still yet to truly get The Horrors but when I looked at Zach Deputy’s description of his music as "island-infused drum n' bass gospel ninja soul”, that was the part of it that stood out. It wasn’t until I looked into it further that I realized he wasn’t referring to his music necessarily, but the way he performed it live. The South Carolina native plays live on his own, with an electro-acoustic guitar and a quite frankly astonishing amount of tech. Most notably four different microphones, to create an inspired collage of looped guitar riffs, choral harmonies, beat boxing and his singing voice on top of it all. He’s extremely skilled at it, but what truly sets him apart from the legions of other solo artists with a loop pedal and a clue, are his songs. They are truly joyous things infused with influences mainly from his childhood loves of calypso, funk and soul. His mastery of his tech and his instrument is so deep that every single show is different, as every time he plays a song it gets pieced together in a slightly different way than the last one. With every single show unique to the next one, a show of Zach Deputy is an artist to see again and again and again, regardless of what he calls his music. Highly recommended.