Eiko Ishibashi

Eiko Ishibashi is a multi-instrumentalist, producer, and singer/songwriter from Japan. Her primary instrument is the piano; she also plays drums, flute, and vibraphone. Her recorded catalog reveals that she's as adept at composing as she is at performing quirky pop, modern classical music, prog-rock, post-bop, and free improv. Well-traveled as a collaborator in studio and on tour, her solo recordings -- including 2014's Car and Freezer -- revealed the seam where her quirky pop meets complex jazz composition, while Kouen Kyoudai, her 2016 album-length collaboration with Merzbow, offered industrial improvisation. 2018's acclaimed avant-pop set The Dream My Bones Dream appeared on Drag City. 2022 saw the release of her score and soundtrack to Ryusuke Hamaguchi's feature film, Drive My Car. In addition to other film scores, such as 2024's Evil Does Not Exist, she has continued issuing solo efforts like 2025's Antigone and collaborations with Jim O'Rourke, including Pareidolia. Ishibashi received formal piano training during childhood through her hometown high school in Chiba Prefecture. As an adolescent and young adult, a career in music as a drummer in several bands, including Puff Puff. She also worked as a session musician for many Japanese artists playing piano and vibes. Her first "solo" recording was Slip Beneath the Distant Tree in 2007, a double-length duo offering with Ruins bassist Tatsuya Yoshida. She followed it a year later with the innovative Drifting Devil. The album captured the critical imagination of Japanese journalists -- many of whom selected it as one of the year's best recordings -- as well as the admiration of fellow musicians, and her reputation grew. Ishibashi was working constantly both in the studio and on the road with an entire range of players in addition to performing her own shows. 2009 saw the release of the collaborative trio album Maboroshi with Gianni Gebbia and Daniele Camarda. The following year she met O'Rourke when they were both invited to play on Phew!'s Five Finger Discount. He asked her to perform on his All Kinds of People: Love Burt Bacharach tribute set that was also issued in 2010, and they joined one another's bands. He produced Ishibashi's 2011 album Carapace, and recorded and mixed her solo piano follow-up, I'm Armed. Both recordings were issued on Felicity. In 2013, she played on Gaspar Claus' Jo Ha Kyū alongside Ryuichi Sakamoto, Keiji Haino, and Kazutoki Umezu. She also signed to Drag City, which released Imitation of Life, produced by O'Rourke. She followed it with Car and Freezer in 2014. Ishibashi and O'Rourke were also members of Kafka's Ibiki, who cut three albums between 2013 and 2014. She played on O'Rourke's Simple Songs in 2015. Ishibashi kept up a rigorous touring regimen that included playing her own shows and with O'Rourke and their band. She also found time to form RNA with Fumio Kosakai and Kimihide Kusafuka, and cut the double-cassette release No New Tokyo. In early 2016, Ishibashi released another duo recording, this one in collaboration with Masami Akita (aka Merzbow); entitled Kouen Kyoudai, it was recorded and mixed by O'Rourke and released on Editions Mego. In addition, she worked with experimental sound artist and composer John Duncan on his Bitter Earth, and privately released the digital-only piano trio full-length Six Feet Under with bassist Toshiaki Sudoh and drummer Tatsuhisa Yamamoto. After time off and touring with O'Rourke, Ishibashi returned to the studio in 2018 and released the experimental Ichida in collaboration with composer and multi-instrumentalist Darin Gray on Black Truffle, and her own two-part solo suite Hyakki Yagyō for the same label. She also issued the globally acclaimed mutant pop collection The Dream My Bones Dream on Drag City. During the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, Ishibashi released Mugen No Juunin: Immortal on Japan's Pony Canyon label. The following year, she recorded her original score and soundtrack for Ryusuke Hamaguchi's feature Drive My Car. In 2022, she also released For McCoy, recorded with a jazz quintet. The two-part title suite appeared alongside the composition "Ask Me How I Sleep at Night." Ishibashi and O'Rourke collaborated on the 2023 score/soundtrack for the art installation and Jimmy Bontatibus film The Lifetime of a Flower. 2024's Evil Does Not Exist film score appeared on Drag City. Album I and II, two full-length collaborations with Von Spar, Joe Talia, and Tatsuhisa Yamamoto, were issued by Bureau B. Ishibashi followed these with Antigone, a cousin to the alien-sounding pop of The Dream My Bones Dream, in March 2025. On Antigone, Ishibashi moved away from the loopy, odd-time-signature-driven pop of earlier albums. The record focused more on '70s-inflected progressive chord progressions balanced by '80s-tinged ambient textures and reverb across a plethora of styles. Pareidolia, edited from a series of improvised performances with O'Rourke in Europe during 2023, was issued in August of 2025. ~ Thom Jurek, Rovi