Zadie Belfer-Shevett
Electronic music producer and performer
Connecticut River Valley
“Earnest electronica straight from the soul.”
– Tyler Etters, Co-Founder and Creative Director of Klang Magazine
as zbs.fm, I bring my experience as a composer and instrumentalist into the aesthetics of electronic music with shuffling dance grooves, synthetic tones, and intricate sequencing. I use hardware to compose & produce & perform a melodic and intentional blend of downtempo electronica, UK garage and drum’n’bass. full biography
Zadie Belfer-Shevett began their multi-instrumental musical journey as a singer-songwriter in central Massachusetts, inspired by artists like Nick Drake, Pinegrove and Fleet Foxes. After many years of acoustic performances, Zadie began to blend their wistful melodies and vulnerable ballads with a newfound fascination for sampling, audio synthesis and shuffling house grooves.
In 2020, Zadie created the website zbs.fm as a simple platform for sharing audio among friends, describing the project as an “abstract radio station”. As of 2024, Zadie has uploaded over 300 hours of deeply personal electronic music to the repository and adopted zbs.fm as their artist name.
The first zbs.fm album was released in September 2023. Interstate is 92-minute collection of raw, nocturnal techno, described as “minimal techno sessions for your 2am drive home.” Each track on the album is a close investigation into the snappy analog drums of the Elektron Analog Rytm (Zadie’s drum machine of choice to this day) and the wild, unpredictable power of the Moog DFAM, which explodes with never-before-heard percussive noises and snarling basslines.
Zadie released another album in January of 2024. Melodies 2020-2024 is a rounding-up of eight magical moments from Zadie’s practice over the years. Each track is an exploration of a singular melodic idea, performed on hardware and lightly edited/mastered for release.
Melodies was originally created as a guest mix for Klang Magazine on January 22nd, 2024: Klang Mix 009
“Zadie approaches their electronic toolkit with unparalleled curiosity, not only to find comfort and expressivity at the outer reaches of their machines’ technical functionality, but also in pursuit of fascinating aesthetic form. Every deep listen is rewarded with a comprehensive survey of genre and a glance to the horizon of new possibilities."
– dani derks, host of Sound + Process
In April of 2024, Zadie released Avarice & This Is, an easy-listening pair of deep house / downtempo tracks, created to “wrap you up in a cozy sound blanket while you work or study.” Read the full writeup on this release here.
Today, Zadie performs a subtle and captivating blend of downtempo electronica, house, techno, and breakbeats with an ear to artists like Floating Points, Boards of Canada, and Kieran Hebden. Their love for the outsider electronics of Caterina Barbieri and Kali Malone is matched by an embodied enthusiasm for pop tunes by Caroline Polachek, Charli XCX and Lorde.