Kishi Bashi, Tall Tall Trees

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Rachael Renee Levasseur

Kishi Bashi

Omoiyari: A Song Film by Kishi Bashi, a companion piece to his 2019 album Omoiyari, premiered in March at SXSW. The album and film emerged from the songwriter and violinist's research into the history of internment camps for Japanese Americans during World War II (and recent government policy and political rhetoric fueling white supremacy). The music converts those heavy topics into songs that are elegiac yet hopeful. Kishi Bashi's current tour looks back to more recent history, celebrating the 10th anniversary reissue of his debut album, 151a; he will play the album in its entirety, with a full band. With Tall Tall Trees.

media release: To celebrate the release of the 10th anniversary reissue of Kishi Bashi’s momentous debut album 151a, the acclaimed songwriter and violinist has shared a gorgeous new video for the original album’s lead single “Manchester” that mirrors the song’s cinematic, stirring, and romantic nature. "Everything changes when our main character comes back from a tough day at work and accidentally finds his own notebook,” explains director Fedor Prunkov. “He then remembers feelings of a past summer love and reminisces on a relationship that made him feel alive. Things end, but memories last forever.” The 22-track collection expands the original 151a with its 11 corresponding demo recordings, and features new artwork by Hsiao Ron Cheng as well as a detailed track-by-track and liner notes by Kishi Bashi (née Kaoru Ishibashi). The 151a 10th anniversary reissue is available in multiple formats via Joyful Noise Recordings: double vinyl (including a limited edition orange variant) and double CD, plus a cassette of the demos only.

A corresponding March/April 2022 Anniversary Tour will take Kishi Bashi and his full band throughout the eastern U.S. and into Canada, and see them performing 151a in full alongside additional songs from his catalog.

“I think when people get emotional about music, they are reacting and connecting to the humanity that the artist has successfully channeled. I poured my heart and personhood into this album in an act of catharsis, and 151a launched my career and remains one of my most popular albums to this day,” Kishi Bashi reflects in the reissue’s liner notes. “As I look back and listen to 151a on the occasion of its 10-year anniversary, I hear how much I’ve matured, and how I’m still the same (I love simple melodies and strings and analog synths).”

Released in 2012, 151a established Kishi Bashi as an artist to watch in his own right, following years performing as a multi-instrumentalist with artists including Regina Spektor and of Montreal (his collaboration on the latter’s album Paralytic Stalks proved formative). The title is a riff on the Japanese phrase “ichi-go ichi-e,” roughly translating to “one time, one place.” That’s exactly what this debut, produced and performed exclusively by Kishi Bashi, is: A singular time, an inimitable place, a launchpad for bigger and better things to come for the one-man orchestra.

151a—which earned praise from NPR’s Weekend Edition Saturday, NPR Music (‘Best Songs of 2012’), Interview Magazine, and more—is a mediation between opposing drives, offering possible reconciliation but never promising it, and Kishi Bashi also uses the album as a vehicle to explore his cultural background. Using Japanese refrains as a compositional and textural device (the polyrhythmic grandeur of “Bright Whites”; the gleeful surrealism of “It All Began With a Burst”), he celebrates his heritage with earnestness—a portent of his future musical explorations, as seen in 2019’s acclaimed album Omoiyari and 2020’s Emigrant EP. Japanese phrases and couplets are sung as the response to Kishi Bashi’s resplendent calls, offering listeners a conversation that dovetails with the album’s themes of love, sentimentality, and self-discovery. 

Today, the “one time” and “one place” that 151a inhabited seems further than ever, almost broaching celestial realms of time and space. But, rest assured, with each listen, the world that Kishi Bashi built springs back to life. The world of 151a never left—it was just waiting to be rediscovered. Case in point: the album’s emotional wellspring, “I Am The Antichrist To You,” introduced him to a new generation of awestruck fans when it was reimagined and featured in a climactic scene of Adult Swim’s animated sci-fi hit Rick and Morty just last summer.

The March/April 2022 Anniversary Tour run will take Kishi Bashi and his full band throughout the eastern U.S. and into Canada, and see them performing 151a in full alongside additional songs from his catalog.