Eiko Ishibashi was again reunited with Japanese Director Ryusuke Hamaguchi to score his eco-drama Evil Does Not Exist. The film score will be released on Drag City in June…listen to the lead single, ‘Smoke’.
One of my favourite films of 2021 was Japanese Director Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s film adaptation of Haruki Murakami’s short story Drive My Car. A complex and challenging adaptation, it went on to win many awards, including Best Screenplay at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival. The jazzy soundtrack for the film was scored by Eiko Ishibashi and went hand-in-hand with the beautiful cinematography–who can forget those SAAB 900 scenes?
Eiko Ishibashi was reunited with Hamaguchi for his latest film, the eco-drama, Evil Does Not Exist, in which a glamping company upsets the lives and ecology of a Mizubiki Village near Tokyo, where the residents live modest lives according to the cycles and order of nature. The film is in UK and Irish cinemas now (details here: modernfilms.com/evildoesnotexist)
The film was released last year in Japan and Europe and has already won several prestigious awards; the film score will be released on June 28th via Drag City.
The relationship between the Director and composer has been described as more tightly fused and experimental, which seems to come across in the lead single, Smoke.
Eiko’s compositions are scored for violin, cello, guitar, drums and keyboards; her longtime partner Jim O’Rourke played the guitar while handling mixing and mastering. The lead single, “Smoke”, sets the scene with an ominous, insistent shimmering of cymbals over placid breaths of the flute. As kick drum sounds approach thunder and flutes edge ambiently into the red, panic sets in — rolling restive over the trapkit, until Ishibashi’s orchestration thickens the drone and burgeons invisibly into microtones.
UK Film Screenings
Evil Does Not Exist, directed by Ryusuke Hamaguchi (Drive My Car) is in UK and Irish cinemas now. modernfilms.com/evildoesnotexist
A vital recomposition of the relationship of sound to narrative, and composer to filmmaker, Eiko’s newest body of work started when she asked Hamaguchi to make a video for a live performance. For Hamaguchi, the core of the resulting production was creating footage for Eiko’s work, initially setting out to create a silent film: “I couldn’t develop the film through dialogue as I had done before,” Hamaguchi shares. “I felt that the actors existing powerfully and largely independent of Eiko’s music would create the most compelling synergy when eventually combined with her music.” The resulting performances from each actor led Hamaguchi to develop the script further and add sequences of dialogue, creating two distinct works in the end: GIFT, a silent film to act as a visual score for a live performance by Ishibashi, and the narrative feature film Evil Does Not Exist, which provided the visual material for the silent film GIFT and features Eiko’s music as its soundtrack.
Eiko’s soundtrack arrives on LP and digital platforms on June 28th, 2024. For the occasion, Eiko Ishibashi will perform her live score to GIFT in New York and Chicago with film screenings of Evil Does Not Exist hosted by Ryusuke Hamaguchi. Tickets are on sale now.
Pre-Order Evil Does Not Exist album – https://www.dragcity.com/products/evil-does-not-exist
Stream “Smoke” single – https://lnk.to/evildoesnotexist
Eiko Ishibashi 2024 Performances
Europe
11th April – @ Timeless Film Festival Warsaw @ POLIN Museum – Warsaw, PL
12th April – @ Grand Hall CK Zamek – Poznań, PL
13th April – @ New Horizons Cinema – Wrocław, PL
14th April – @ National Centre for Film Culture / EC1 Łódź – Łódź, PL
28th April – @ Far East Film Festival @ Teatro Nuovo – Urdine, IT
All of the above are GIFT live score performances by Eiko Ishibashi
USA
Ist May – @ Film at Lincoln Center / Walter Reade Theater – New York, NY ^
2nd May – @ Film at Lincoln Center / Walter Reade Theater – New York, NY ^
4th May – @ Le Poisson Rouge – New York, NY #
7th May – @ Le Poisson Rouge – New York, NY #
11th May – @ Logan Center for the Arts – Chicago, IL ^
^ GIFT live score performance by Eiko Ishibashi
+ film screening by Ryusuke Hamaguchi
# Performing the music of Drive My Car