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For more info:
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an the Georgia Center Lawn
1197 S. Lumpkin St.
Classic Cftv Swing Band
Period Six
Marys The Hot Hotty-Hots
Trey Wright Quartet
Athens Tango Project
hltehalllazi Collective
flagpole Scary Story Contest
Topic: An original scary story set in Athens
Length: 500-750 words
Send stories to: editor@flagpole.com or
220 Prince Ave. Athens, 6A 30601
Illustrations email: comics@flagpole.com for specs
f% Publication: The three winning
I rrlTCS 1 stories will be published in the
Oct. 26 Flagpole. All stories will
be published online.
Judging: Stories will be judged
by Flagpole editors on the
basis of creativity, scariness
and local flavor!
1 st Place: $75
2 n<l Place: $50
3 r<l Place: $25
DEADLINE
WEDNESDAY,
OCT. 12
at 5pm!
Gome Together
KI8HI BASHI FINDS COMFORT IN COMMON GROUND
By Andy Barton music@flagpole.com
W riter’s block is the worst. That
sentence alone—those five
words, totaling a mere 22 let
ters—took at least 30 minutes to come up
with. No joke. Adequately expressing one’s
message in an engaging way is a daunt
ing task, and starting is always the hard
est part. But as real and irritating as the
creative wall is, it’s still surprising that an
individual as creative and talented as Kaoru
Ishibashi could fall prey to those same
speed bumps.
For those unfamiliar with Ishibashi’s
background, the man is nothing short of
a phenom. Over the past few years, he has
developed quite the CV: a stint playing with
of Montreal; his own cadre of recordings
under the name Kishi Bashi (including a live
album backed by a
string quartet); film
scoring; commercial
sync licensing; and
his bread and but
ter, a jaw-dropping
live performance,
which typically
includes layers
of mesmerizing,
manipulated vocal
and violin loops.
However, for
Ishibashi’s most
recent album,
Sonderlust, it took a
little longer for the
creative juices to
start flowing.
“I was so burnt
out last spring
after touring,” he
says, referring to a
stint that included
performances with
a string section, as
well as a separate leg
with his standard backing band accompany
ing pop mainstays Guster. “It was pretty
intense.”
So Ishibashi and his family headed to
Folly Beach, SC for a breath of fresh air.
Naturally, he couldn’t help but fiddle with
the instruments stored in the house’s music
room. “I tried to kind of do my stuff, and
couldn’t really do anything. At all. It was
kind of frustrating,” he says with a laugh.
As he struggled to create a record sty
listically similar to his past work, Ishibashi
began using the recording software Ableton
Live. “It allows you to manipulate samples
really quickly, so that you can just be very
creative with it,” he says. “There are a couple
songs that literally started because of
these samples.” The album’s opening track,
“m’lover,” takes a violin arpeggio and loops
it as vocal harmonies, drums and strings
propel the ballad to its emotional limits.
With this new approach, a new sound
started to develop. “Once I realized this was
not going to be an orchestral pop album, it
got really easy,” says Ishibashi, who began
to let in more of the sounds he’d always got
ten excited about—specifically, 1970s soul,
funk and rock.
“In the back of my mind, I understood
that maybe it’s a good move, because if I
made an album kind of frustrated and not
too excited about it, I’m sure it would just
translate into the music, so I should just go
with what I was excited about at the time,”
says Ishibashi.
Hints of ELO and Pink Floyd come
through on tracks like the Wurlitzer-led
slow groove of “Who’d You Kill” and the
peppy “Why Don’t You Answer Me,” which
finds Ishibashi pushing his voice into
territories he only flirted with on previ
ous albums 151a and Lighght. “I’m so far
removed from being able to sing like that
or write like that, that I also took it upon
myself to challenge my singing style,” he
says. “For me, it’s really different.”
While new
discoveries and
experimentation
shaped the music
of Sonderlust, trials
within Ishibashi’s
personal life became
the record’s lyrical
focus.
“My marriage
was kind of strug
gling. It was already
always struggling,
just because I’m a
touring musician,”
he says candidly.
“Classic story. It
definitely gave me
a lyrical element. I
dove into the music
almost like a distrac
tion, and that kind
of helped me.”
As he navigated
a separation, it
became increas
ingly important for
Ishibashi to relate what he was experienc
ing with his listeners, which is where the
title of the album comes into play. Derived
from “sonder,” a word created by writer
John Koenig and posted on his blog, The
Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows—a site
dedicated to providing names for the count
less, hard-to-define emotions humans expe
rience—“sonderlust” describes the desire to
connect with as many strangers as possible,
knowing they all experience as complex a
life as one’s own.
“I have this kind of worldview where I
really feel connected to a lot of strangers,
essentially, who listen to my music,” says
Ishibashi. “When I make this music, I’m
really thinking about them as much as I am
myself, about how this would help them or
influence them or maybe make their lives a
little bit better.” ©
WHO: Kishi Bashi, Twain
WHERE: Georgia Theatre
WHEN: Tuesday, Sept. 27, 7 p.m.
HOW MUCH: $20
16 FLAGPOLE.COM • SEPTEMBER 21,2016