Ginger Root says their latest album is ‘aggressive elevator soul’

Cameron Lew wasn’t sure whether to pursue film or music when he was in high school. It turns out he’d end up pursuing both, and a whole lot more with his band Ginger Root. Sure, Lew makes the music, but he also shoots, directs and edits all the videos that accompany them.

On the latest record, SHINBANGUMI, which roughly translates to “a new season of a show” in Japanese, Lew created his own cinematic universe, putting him in the hallways of a fictional Japanese TV network in the 1980s. The setting isn’t a huge surprise. Ginger Root has been part of the city-pop resurgence, a style of synth-pop that was huge Japan in the ’70s and ’80s. But as Lew will explain, SHINBANGUMI was a chance to shed that label and highlight other influences, like Paul McCartney, Devo and Vulfpeck.

Plus, we’ll find out why Lew calls Ginger Root “aggressive elevator soul” and how he ended up teaching himself Japanese during the pandemic.

This episode of World Cafe was produced by Stephen Kallao. The web story was created by Miguel Perez. Our engineer is Chris Williams. Our programming and booking coordinator is Chelsea Johnson. Our line producer is Will Loftus and our senior producer is Kimberly Junod.