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Kishi Bashi’s Eclectic Pop Songs Revel in Japanese Heritage
By James Moreau | 06 Jul, 2025
The acclaimed Japanese American musician has achieved success with genre-bending albums and impactful artistic projects.
Even while combining electronic orchestral richness with indie rock beats Kaoru Ishibashi’s music glories in distinctive Japanese themes.
The inveterate musical adventurer has found enough commercial appeal to release 5 independent albums, the most recent being Kantos in 2024. But it was his 2019 release Omoiyari that peaked in the Top 40 of the US Album Sales Chart.
The documentary Omoiyari: A Song Film by Kishi Bashi represents a significant new dimension to Ishibashi’s creative energies. The film features various orchestral versions of his songs and explores themes of compassion and empathy, the Japanese American experience, and a history of Japanese American incarceration during World War II.
The film premiered on Paramount+ in 2022 and earned an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Arts & Culture Documentary.
For three seasons beginning in 2020 Ishibashi composed the soundtrack for the Apple TV+ animated series Stillwater.
In 2003 Ishibashi co-founded the rock band Jupiter One alongside Zac Colwell. They had met while touring as circus musicians in Barnum’s Kaleidoscape. Jupiter One’s 2007 self-titled debut album featured “Countdown,” a song that enjoyed broad recognition after its inclusion on the Madden NFL 08 soundtrack.
Facing stagnant growth, creative restrictions, and financial struggles, Kishi Bashi decided to move on from Jupiter One and into his parents’ attic, where he recorded his debut solo album, 151a, a decision he considers the best of his career.
The 2012 album was able to focus on a more orchestral sound, including “I Am the Antichrist to You” his most viewed YouTube video. The song enjoyed a resurgence after being featured in a 2021 Rick and Morty episode. It currently has over 52 million plays on Spotify.
Ishibashi’s second most streamed song is “Bright Whites” which opens with fast paced Japanese lyrics that set up a radiant, uplifting folk soundscape. The broad appeal of “Bright Whites” led to its use in a Microsoft Windows 8 ad. Similarly “It All Began With A Burst” was used in a SONY Xperia commercial around the album’s release.
Kishi Bashi’s other albums include Sonderlust in 2016 and Lighght in 2014. Kaoru Ishibashi, 49, was born in Seattle to immigrant Japanese parents but moved to Ithaca, New York where he began learning the violin at 7. The family eventually settled in Norfolk, Virginia where both parents taught at Old Dominion University. Kaoru enrolled in Cornell as an engineering student before he found his calling. He graduated from the Berklee College of Music in 1999 with a concentration in jazz violin and film scoring.
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