Eiko Ishibashi | Artist

Eiko Ishibashi is a Japanese ambient-electronic musician born 1974 in Mobara, Chiba, Japan. Her primary instrument is the piano, but she also plays drums, flute, and vibraphone. Her recorded catalogue 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. 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 major 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. That 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. The artist has gone on to release over forty studio albums to-date, including collaborations and film soundtracks. Standout albums include Drifting Devil (2008), Immitation of Life (2012), Car and Freezer (2014), For McCoy (2021), Drive My Car (2021), Evil Does Not Exist (2024), and Antigone (2025). Her later albums have moved towards a chamber Jazz direction, which is expertly displayed in her recent film sountracks, such as Drive My Car. In reviewing the soundtrack to Canadian director Sophie Deraspe's 2019 film Antigone, RYM described it as "A gorgeous piece of Ambient/Art Pop.. each track has an underlying current of unease and foreboding, yet they’re and powerfully grand and picturesque from soaring saxophone to melancholic accordion to simple electronic bliss the way the tracks grow and evolve, shifting without moving is captivating and so special." Eiko Ishibashi is currently in a relationship with American musician Jim O'Rourke. The two met when Ishibashi played flute on a Burt Bacharach covers album O'Rourke was producing. They live and work closely together, but "keep a professional distance, sending each other data files to work on rather than jamming.

Artist Website: eikoishibashi.net

Featured Albums: Eiko Ishibashi

Related Artists: Jim O'Rourke, RNA, Panicsmile