Eiko Ishibashi Live Film Score at The Walker (More Shows at Berlin Monday and Tuesday!)
Eiko Ishibashi is a multi-disciplinary artist who is probably best known for her movie soundtracks, especially when she created the atmosphere for Drive My Car, but has put out multiple solo and collaborative albums that have stretched into numerous genres. She came to town this week for a movie screening and show this weekend at the Walker and solo shows early this week at Berlin. Knowing how rare these shows are and recognizing Ishibashi is one of the most exciting artists of the last few years (in my opinion), I made sure I was able to check out a few of these sets.
Saturday night was a movie soundtrack Ishibashi created for a silent movie created just for her music-making by filmmaker Ryūsuke Hamaguchi. Hamaguchi is the director of Drive My Car and Evil Does Not Exist, both of which he work with Eiko, amongst other highly regarded films. For Gift, the movie that screened Saturday and only is being screened when Ishibashi is playing live, he created a movie with no spoken dialogue, but a deep story of family, capitalism and nature that only featured a handful of explainer texts on the screen.
While the movie was visually stunning and the story compelling and challenging, I was mostly there for the music. Unsurprisingly Ishibashi’s music was as emotive, beautiful and haunting as the film. Sitting in front of a table of electronics, facing the screen so she could manipulate sounds as scenes changed. Her music was at times chattering chainsaws, other times rocking trees, other times sadness or joy. I was lucky to get a CD of the soundtrack, and listening back after the show it is a collection of music that both washes over the listener and shakes loose the cobwebs. It is the kind of music that I have grown to love from her, and it was amazing to see this limited screening.
Ishibashi is using her visit to Minnesota to also play two solo sets, both Monday and Tuesday at 7 p.m. at Berlin. The shows are highly recombined. Listen below to a few of my favorites from her catalog.
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