Sonderlust (Demo-arigato version) reissue Bio: A decade ago, Kaoru Dill-Ishibashi AKA Kishi Bashi found himself emptied out. The success of his previous albums, 151a and Lighght, had turned Ishibashi into a kind of orchestral ringmaster, his looping violin and buoyant melodies celebrated for their palatial brightness. But by 2015, after years of relentless touring, that brightness threatened to dim. He went to all his usual conduits of creation — violin loops, guitar, piano — and came up with the musical equivalent of fumes. “Touring and its accompanying lifestyle took a heavy toll on my soul and my family,” he recalls. From that exhaustion came Sonderlust, released in 2016, an album that marked not just a stylistic shift, but a profoundly personal one. Gone were the ornate flourishes and the dizzying maximalism. In their place: analog warmth, vulnerability, and a spiritual candor. It was filled with the kind of startling emotion that Ishibashi never before allowed himself. “It was the beginning of me growing up,” he recalls. “Being comfortable expressing my heartbreak.”
