One of the rewards of being a fan of a particular band, besides their actual music, is that you sometimes get to reap the benefits of the music they’re into. In this case it was Sondre Lerche and his uncanny ability to pick remarkably talented show openers. Before attending his summer tour I had never even heard of multi-instrumentalist K. Ishibashi, a.k.a. Kishi Bashi.
It’s sort of surprising I hadn’t heard of Ishibashi sooner, considering the man has an impressive set of credentials – a touring member of Of Montreal and founding member of NYC band Jupiter One, who’ve opened for Regina Spektor – but it was Kishi Bashi’s energetic live solo set that initiated me into the wonderful world of the loop pedal virtuoso and cemented my fandom. While it’s easy to compare Ishibashi’s violin and loop-pedal stylings to those of the much more known Andrew Bird or Owen Pallet, to do so would be a disservice, as it simply detracts from what makes Kishi Bashi truly unique.
Whether it be in the sprawling, folky “Manchester” or the Japanese-accented “Bright Whites”, Kishi Bashi’s first and foremost goal seems to be creating these beautifully woven textural landscapes using any tool at his disposal to do so (even doing a bit of beat-boxing in live renditions of “Atticus In The Desert”). That’s not to say the man is without lyricism. Man’s got that in spades as well as can be in the aforementioned “Manchester”, where the storytelling narrative is actually that of a novel. Pair that with jaw-dropping violin gymnastics played with breathtaking ease and it’s a wonder more people haven’t heard of the man.
Lovers of the one-man band won’t be disappointed in Kishi Bashi. Unlike bedroom projects that require a set of musicians to fully realize all the various moving parts, Kishi Bashi just needs himself and a looper and he’s ready to go; creating virtually flawless, lush, intricate songs that bely the complex songcraft of their sole creator. Kishi Bashi’s debut EP “Room For Dream” offers a diverse assortment of instant favorites that provide the perfect warm up for his upcoming debut album “151a” (pronounced ichi-go-ichi-e), which is already shaping up to be one of my most anticipated releases of the year – and it should be one of yours too.
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Kishi Bashi – “Manchester”
Kishi Bashi – “Evalyn, Summer Has Arrived (feat. Kevin Barnes)”
