Eiko Ishibashi

Eiko Ishibashi works in Japan as a session musician, producer, and singer/songwriter. Her catalog shows equal ease moving between quirky pop, modern classical, prog, and the outer edges of improvisational jazz and noise. She has appeared live and on tour with Jim O’Rourke, Keiji Haino, Akira Sakata, Charlemagne Palestine, Oren Ambarchi, and Glenn Kotche. The 2014 album Car and Freezer mapped the point where her off-kilter pop sensibility overlapped with elaborate jazz writing, while the 2016 full-length collaboration Kouen Kyoudai with Masami Akita (Merzbow) concentrated on industrial improvisation.

Piano remains her central instrument, yet she also commands drums, flute, and vibraphone. Childhood lessons in her hometown of Monbara in Chiba Prefecture continued through high school, after which she entered music as a drummer in bands such as Puff Puff and later supplied piano and vibes as a studio musician for many Japanese artists.

Her first “solo” recording, the double-length duo Slip Beneath the Distant Tree with Ruins bassist Tatsuya Yoshida, appeared in 2007. Drifting Devil followed the next year and drew strong notice from Japanese writers, several of whom listed it among the year’s finest releases, while fellow musicians likewise took note and her standing rose.

She stayed busy in studios and on stages with a wide circle of players while still mounting her own concerts. In 2009 the trio album Maboroshi emerged with Gianni Gebbia and Daniele Camarda. The following year she met O’Rourke during sessions for Phew!’s Five Finger Discount; he then invited her onto his 2010 Burt Bacharach tribute All Kinds of People: Love Burt Bacharach, and the two joined each other’s bands. O’Rourke produced her 2011 Felicity album Carapace and recorded and mixed the solo-piano follow-up I’m Armed. In 2013 she performed on Gaspar Claus’ Jo Ha Kyū with Ryuichi Sakamoto, Haino, and Kazutoki Umezu.

Drag City released the O’Rourke-produced Imitation of Life, after which Car and Freezer appeared in 2014. Ishibashi and O’Rourke also belonged to Kafka’s Ibiki, which issued three albums between 2013 and 2014. She contributed to O’Rourke’s Simple Songs in 2015. Constant touring encompassed her own dates as well as work with O’Rourke and the band. She additionally formed RNA with Fumio Kosakai and Kimihide Kusafuka, resulting in the double-cassette No New Tokyo.

Early in 2016 another duo album, Kouen Kyoudai with Masami Akita (Merzbow), was recorded and mixed by O’Rourke and issued on Editions Mego. That same year she joined experimental sound artist and composer John Duncan on Bitter Earth and privately issued the digital-only piano-trio set Six Feet Under with bassist Toshiaki Sudoh and drummer Tatsuhisa Yamamoto. After a break and further touring with O’Rourke, she returned to the studio in 2018 for the experimental collaboration Ichida with composer and multi-instrumentalist Darin Gray on Black Truffle and for her own mutant-pop album The Dream My Bones Dream on Drag City.