Kishi Bashi

A decade ago, Kaoru Dill-Ishibashi AKA Kishi Bashi found himself emptied out. The success of his previous albums, 151a and Lighght , had turned Ishibashi into a kind of orchestral ringmaster, his looping violin and buoyant melodies celebrated for their palatial brightness. But by 2015, after years of relentless touring, that brightness threatened to dim. He went to all his usual conduits of creation — violin loops, guitar, piano — and came up with the musical equivalent of fumes. “Touring and its accompanying lifestyle took a heavy toll on my soul and my family,” he recalls. From that exhaustion came Sonderlust , released in 2016, an album that marked not just a stylistic shift, but a profoundly personal one. Gone were the ornate flourishes and the dizzying maximalism. In their place: analog warmth, vulnerability, and a spiritual candor. It was filled with the kind of startling emotion that Ishibashi never before allowed himself. “It was the beginning of me growing up,” he recalls. “Being comfortable expressing my heartbreak.” If Lighght sounded like the inside of a kaleidoscope, Sonderlust was the other side of the rainbow: a record made in the twitchy stillness that follows upheaval. Its title, drawn from John Koenig’s Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows, refers to that formidable realization that every person and passerby carries a life as vivid and complicated as your own. Ishibashi took that idea to heart. “It’s about being inspired by your connection to everyone around you,” he says. “Realizing that every single person is at the center of their own universe. It’s a humbling feeling.” That humility reshaped his music, too. Working with Chris Taylor of Grizzly Bear, Ishibashi set aside the baroque violin loops that had defined his earlier work and began exploring the textural possibilities of vintage synths: specifically, the Juno-106, a MiniMoog, and the Wurlitzer piano. “I wanted to create a more holistic body of work instead of just kitchen-sink energy,” he says. “Nothing says funk like a Wurlitzer.” The result was an album that shimmered with analog vibrance; soulful, strange, and defenselessly human. “Say Yeah” and “Honeybody” bear traces of Stevie Wonder’s kinetic joy, while “Ode to My Next Life” pulses with Moroder-esque propulsion. Ishibashi enlisted drummer Matt Chamberlain to ground the music with a physical heartbeat. “Chris introduced me to these incredible L.A. musicians who replaced my mediocre Wurlitzer parts with seriously great ones,” he says, laughing. “Everything sounds really good. The drums sound great. It still sounds cool.” Listening now, Sonderlust feels both steeped in its era and timeless: a melancholy yet dancy album refracted through the digital nerviness of the mid-2010s. It remains the fulcrum of Kishi Bashi’s catalogue; the moment when his virtuosic playfulness deepened into something more grounded and humane. “Before, I made music that was fun and exciting to me,” he says. “This was more like catharsis for the struggles of my time.” The 10th anniversary reissue brings new, revivified life to that transformation, pairing the music with updated artwork from Ssin Kim, the South Korean artist behind the original Sonderlust cover. “The first piece was called End of the Beginning. It was dark, pessimistic; about the end of life,” Ishibashi explains. “The new one, made post-COVID, feels more optimistic. It’s interesting that she’s changed, just like I have. When you’re younger, the world can feel overwhelming. As you age, you start to see your place in it, become more pragmatic, less anxious. I think that’s what this new art captures, a sense of perspective, of hope.” Ten years later, Ishibashi speaks about the album with gratitude and a slight sense of astonishment. “I’ve been very surprised at how much I’ve changed, what I now value as a musician,” he says. “I used to tour really hard. Now I look back and think, at what cost? But Sonderlust , that feeling of connection, of sonder, that hasn’t ch