Essential Listen: Eiko Ishibashi’s Radio Show on NTS

When in doubt, put on something by Eiko Ishibashi. It’s a mantra that will serve you well when looking for new and old sounds. The Japanese multi-instrumentalist, composer, and producer’s body of work defies easy categorization and stretches back to the mid-‘00s; over the years she’s effortlessly mixed jazz, experimental music, classical composition, and avant-garde pop to create works that are uniquely Ishibashian. She’s best known for her brilliant score for Drive My Car, the 2021 Japanese drama based on a short story by Haruki Murakami and directed by Ryusuke Hamaguchi.

Ishibashi has also collaborated extensively with her partner Jim O’Rourke, with whom she has released several albums, including Cure (2013) and Slip Beneath the Distant Tree (2017). Here’s a truly brilliant hour-long improv session recently uploaded to YouTube.

Since the beginning of 2022, Ishibashi has also been hosting a monthly-ish hour-long radio show on NTS. It’s become required listening on our system, and feels like a dip into what she and O’Rourke might be listening to around their house. Most are loosely themed. A show from earlier this year is tagged as post-rock, folk, and indie rock, and goes deep on Flying Saucer Attack’s dubby shoegaze, O’Rourke project Gastr del Sol, and unsung San Francisco post-punk band Slovenly.

The show below is the most recent, and is worth is for the truly disorienting opening few tracks: An excerpt from experimental symphonic piece by Toru Takemitsu called “November Steps,” followed by a woozy, dreamy excerpt from Rafael Toral’s new 47-minute piece, “Spectral Evolution.” This one was broadcast in late July, which hopefully means a new one’s on the way.

Studio-wise, Ichibashi recently released Evil Does Not Exist through her State-side label, Drag City. A typically expansive work, the record is propelled by her meditative inventive piano tones, which she mixes with strings, electronics and, on the burning jazz jam “Smoke,” drums and noise.