Perspectives: Eiko Ishibashi & Jim O’Rourke

Eiko Ishibashi  
Jim O’Rourke

We are pleased to welcome Eiko Ishibashi & Jim O’Rourke to NCH for two different concerts. On this first concert Eiko and Jim continue their ongoing collaboration. 

Eiko Ishibashi is a Japan-based musician whose work spans pop, experimental, and film music. She has released albums on labels such as Drag City, Black Truffle, and Editions Mego. In 2020, she composed music for the exhibition Japan Supernatural at the Art Gallery of New South Wales in Sydney, later released as Hyakki Yagyo on Black Truffle. In 2021, she gained international recognition for her score for Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s film Drive My Car. She released For McCoy on Black Truffle in 2022, the same year she joined NTS Radio as a resident. In 2023, she reunited with Hamaguchi to compose music for Evil Does Not Exist as well as the silent film GIFT, which they toured internationally with live performances. In March 2025, she released Antigone, her first vocal album in seven years, on Drag City.

Jim O’Rourke, born in Chicago in 1969, has bridged experimental, contemporary, and popular music throughout his career. Alongside projects such as Gastr Del Sol and Loose Fur, he collaborated with Takehisa Kosugi as a composer for the Merce Cunningham Dance Company, and performed with Tony Conrad, Arnold Dreyblatt, and Christian Wolff. His solo works include the acclaimed Bad Timing (1997), continuing the tradition of contemporary Americana, and Eureka (1999), blending folk and minimal music. From 1999 to 2005, he was a member and music director of Sonic Youth, and in 2004 he won a Grammy Award for producing Wilco’s A Ghost Is Born. Now based in Japan, O’Rourke continues to be a prolific producer, working with artists such as Quruli, Kahimi Karie, Eiko Ishibashi, and Kenta Maeno. His wide-ranging output also includes contemporary classical releases (such as Toru Takemitsu’s Corona Tokyo Realization) and scores for films by Werner Herzog, Olivier Assayas, Shinji Aoyama, Koji Wakamatsu, and others.

Their most recent record together is Paraedolia (Drag City Records)

Presented by NCH