Kishi Bashi

Indie rock singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist Kishi Bashi was born Kaoru Ishibashi in Seattle, Washington on November 4, 1975. Born to Japanese parents, his family moved to Norfolk, Virginia, where he grew up. His musical journey began in 1994 when he formed the band Tamarisk while attending Cornell University of Engineering in Ithaca, New York. However, he flunked out of Cornell and then attended Berklee College of Music in Boston, where he studied film scoring before becoming a violinist. While based in Brooklyn, New York, he co-founded indie electropop outfit Jupiter One in 2003. Their self-titled debut EP was released in 2005 and was followed by Magical Mountain and the Floating Hospital (2006), Jupiter One (2007 / reissued in 2008), The Remix EP (2008), and Sunshower (2009). Although the group members came together to talk about a 2012 album release, some of the members were already pursing other projects and Jupiter One fizzled out. Kaoru Ishibashi began a solo career under the name Kishi Bashi and issued his first EP, Room for Dream, in 2011. As a violinist, he worked with many artists including Regina Spektor and of Montreal. He followed his debut EP with the album 151a (2012), which reached number 47 on Billboard’s Independent Albums chart. Kishi Bashi’s music began to be licensed for advertising campaigns by high-profile companies including Microsoft and Sony. His second full-length album, Lighght (2014),was a success and hit number 11 on the Independent Albums chart and number 53 on the Billboard 200 Albums chart. He began to utilize his musical training and composed soundtracks including The Fourth Phase (2016) and Stillwater: Vol. 1 (2020). Further studio releases included Sonderlust (2016), which reached number 17 on the Independent Albums chart, Omoiyari (2019 / number 10), and the Emigrant EP (2021). In November 2023, Kishi Bashi released Music from the Song Film: Omoiyari, a two-disc release that contains ‘The Songs’ and ‘The Score’ to his documentary film Omoiyari.