EIKO
ISHIBASHI

【作品概要】
今作は、2018年にリリースされた『The Dream My Bones Dream』以来となる歌入りのアルバムで、シカゴのレーベルDrag Cityからリリースとなります。
前作に引き続きJim O’Rourkeとの共同プロデュース、O’Rourke氏の他に山本達久、Marty Holoubek、ermhoi、松丸契、Joe Talia、Kalle Mobergが参加。
カバー写真は水谷太郎。スリーブ写真は草野庸子も提供。

Drag CityからはLPと配信のみのリリースです。日本盤はCDのみです。
CDは阿部周平デザインの英子ロゴスタンプと濱口竜介監督のライナーノーツ入りとなります。

また2025年3月14日には恵比寿リキッドルームにてバンド編成によるリリースワンマンライブが決定いたしました。当日は特別にLPと日本版CDの先行販売を行います。

Out March 28, 2025
Antigone/Eiko Ishibashi

1 October
2 Coma
3 Trial
4 Nothing As
5 Mona Lisa
6 Continuous Contiguous
7 The Model
8 Antigone

all songs written by Eiko Ishibashi
(Except ‘Nothing As’ written by Jim O’Rourke)

Produced with JIm O’Rourke
Recorded by Jim O’Rourke and Eiko Ishibashi
Mixed by JIm O’Rourke
Strings and Horn Arrangements:Eiko Ishibashi and Jim O’Rourke
Recorded at Hoshi to Niji Recording Studio,Steamroom,Atelier Eiko

Eiko Ishibashi:Vocal,Piano,Rhodes,Synths,Sound Collage
Jim O’Rourke:Synths,BassVI,Drum Machine
Tatsuhisa Yamamoto:Drums
Marty Holoubek:Bass (Track 1,2,3,5,6,7,8)
Ermhoi:Vocal (Track 2),Backing Vocals (Track 2,3,5,7)
Joe Talia:Percussion (Track 1,2),Drums(Track 3)
Kalle Moberg:Accordion (Track 2,6)
Kei Matsumaru:Alto and Tenor Sax (Track 3,5)
Toshiaki Sudoh:Bass (Track 4)
Mio.O:Violin (Track 8)
Kirin Uchida:Cello (Track 8)

Orchestra Part of Track 7 was composed for ‘2×25 Film Fest Gent’ and performed by Brussels Philharmonic, conducted by Dirk Brossé.
Spoken text of Track 7 is from “The Politics of Health in the Eighteenth Century” by Michel Foucault

Cover Photo:Taro Mizutani
Inner Sleeve Photo:Yoko Kusano,Taro Mizutani
3DCG:Shibashin
Design:Dan Osborn
Lyric translation:Ermhoi,JimO’Rourke

Eiko Ishibashi Antigone DC944 LP March 28, 2025

Are we through the looking glass yet? It’s 2025, and we’re still waiting for the imperfect old world to turn into a super-sick brave new one. Sure, there’s no shortage of raging clear-and-present dangers and fresh outrages for every day on the calendar – but nothing’s ever scarier than what we, one of the insane, innovate to amuse ourselves. Take Antigone, Eiko Ishibashi’s new album – a musical masterwork rife with chilling speculations, all calling from inside her own head!
For Antigone, her first album of songs with lyrics and singing since 2018’s acclaimed The Dream My Bones Dream, Eiko teases out images from a dystopia not unlike the one we’ve already got. Hers is suffused with a ‘scene missing’ quality, its continuity laced with sudden, odd details sprung like traps from within the music’s smooth progressions and expansive reach. Consider these lines from “Coma”:

Covered with ashes, long winter,
 Spring is yet to come
Candle and soap
 Hold onto them tight and oppose gravity
This is your grid, watched by the security camera
You still have some time
To be a survivor in Eden.

Whatever’s going on here doesn’t feel linear, but it’s not unfamiliar, either. It’s a clash of context with Eiko’s serene vocals and the well-appointed precision of the soundscape… disturbing, not entirely okay. That’s it working! And it keeps ticking like clockwork through the whole album.

An accomplished keyboardist, composer and improviser, Eiko consolidates her conceptions throughout Antigone. On her early song based albums – 2013’s sci-fi-based Imitation of Life and 2014’s poptastic Car & Freezer, we sensed an album-oriented direction, built song by song into an inevitable whole. 2018’s conceptually-united The Dream My Bones Dream allowed Eiko to tell stories closer to home. Her instrumental works since then – 2022’s For McCoy (Black Truffle) and the soundtracks for Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s films,Drive My Car and Evil Does Not Exist – have seen her diversity of musical ideas operating in an increasingly integrated long-form presentation.
With these transformative encounters in hand, Eiko and her band – drummer Tatsuhisa Yamamoto, bassist Marty Holoubek, Norweigan accordianist Kalle Moberg, Ermhoi on backing vocals, Joe Talia playing percussion and Jim O’Rourke on Bass VI, synths, etc – bring a wide array of sounds and moods to the songs here, referencing pop, funk and jazz, ambient, electronic andmusique concrète in a seamless flow.
Antigone is a bittersweet look at our already-alternate reality, Eiko’s jarringly personal vision glimpsed through a latticework of ambitious compositions and on-lock production techniques. At last! Now, the year 2025 will never be the same.