Kishi Bashi Shares New Preview Of His MTV Documentary Soundtrack 'Music From The Song Film: Omoiyari'

(Chromatic) Kishi Bashi (nee Kaoru Ishibashi) today released "Improvisation at Heart Mountain" and "Summer of '42," the latest preview of his new double album Music from the Song Film: Omoiyari, the expansive companion soundtrack to his forthcoming A Song Film By Kishi Bashi: "Omoiyari" documentary due out November 17th via Joyful Noise Recordings. The two tracks, released in sequential order as they appear on the double album's first half, are out now alongside a video featuring footage from the "song film" co-directed by Ishibashi and Justin Taylor Smith. Beginning with the live violin improvisation filmed at the titular Heart Mountain Internment Camp in Wyoming, the clip segues into a live performance of a new, alternate orchestral version of "Summer of '42" (an original single from his 2019 album Omoiyari), recorded with the Nu Deco Ensemble in Miami, FL, and finalized at Echo Mountain Recording in Asheville, NC.

"I consider this version of 'Summer of '42' to be the original incarnation. It was written as the finale of my symphonic piece, 'Improvisations on EO9066'-based on the Executive Order from FDR resulting in the Japanese American incarceration and the origin point of the song film-and is connected to the Epilogue, 'What Does It Mean to be American?' (which is on the soundtrack as well)," Ishibashi explains. "This song is about a love affair that existed in a Japanese American Incarceration Camp in 1942. In many ways, this is a reflection of the optimism that I still have for our future, based on my belief that we will always be able to find love, humility, and forgiveness even in the darkest of times." The songs follow the soundtrack's lead single, "Red, White, and Blue," released last month.

Focusing on Ishibashi's own six-year journey of discovery surrounding his research of the incarceration of 120,000 Japanese Americans that followed the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, A Song Film By Kishi Bashi: "Omoiyari" is part social justice documentary and part song-film experiment that captures his personal quest to create music in locations relevant to the Internment during WWII. It is on this journey in which Kishi Bashi comes to terms with his own Japanese American identity and uncovers a myriad of social issues that have gripping modern relevance. Music from the Song Film: Omoiyari-encompassing 33-tracks and two LPs (The Songs and The Score)-brings together live performances and improvisations on location, an instrumental score, underscore, and new studio recorded songs (including alternate orchestral versions of previously released tracks). The entirety was written during and is about the artist's transformational dive into his personal minority identity and serves as a broad survey of the Japanese American experience as well as the incarceration.

A Song Film By Kishi Bashi: "Omoiyari," produced by JJ Gerber and Jim Angelo, and executive produced by Ryan Suffern, Jenny Mills and MTV Executive Producer Sheila Nevins, arrived in theaters on October 6th via MTV Documentary Films in select cities) following its world premiere at 2022's SXSW Film & TV Festival, where it received rave reviews, and a special screening at the Woodstock Film Festival on September 30th.

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