Eiko Ishibashi and director Ryusuke Hamaguchi both revel in the unresolved. Ishibashi’s music has flitted between toy-box art punk, wide-open free jazz, zig-zagging classical piano, and dreamy industrialism, arriving now at a tense, quietly graceful form of musique concréte in which it’s never obvious what’s coming next. Hamaguchi, meanwhile, has steadily built a body of work delving into the quotidian unknown; the most mundane moments in his films hide the possibility for strange twists, vulnerable revelations, and open-hearted catharsis. Ishibashi’s soundtrack for Hamaguchi’s acclaimed 2021 film Drive My Car not only offered a sweet, sighing counterbalance to the film’s winding search for closure, but also delivered some of Ishibashi’s downright prettiest music yet. It was so successful that the two have teamed up once again, this time for a project of a very different nature.
Ishibashi wrote the Drive My Car score based on visuals sent to her by Hamaguchi, along with reference points (a theme song in the vein of Henry Mancini; music that sounds “like a landscape,” she told Variety). But Evil Does Not Exist took shape more holistically. The project began when Ishibashi asked Hamaguchi for imagery to accompany a new live performance she was working on, to be titled Gift. After a visit to her studio a few hours outside Tokyo—where, amid the tranquil surroundings, the two discussed the relationship between cities and nature—Hamaguchi began writing a story about a small rural community that becomes disturbed when a glamping company moves in and threatens to contaminate their water supply. Hamaguchi ended up shooting an entire film around the narrative, and in turn, Ishibashi fleshed out her music to match it.
Evil Does Not Exist isn’t a plot-heavy film; as the glamping resort plans how to set up shop in the village, Ishibashi’s music—the secret heart of the story—navigates the uneasy balance between the peacefully snow-covered countryside and the awkward cityfolk trying to interject themselves into its ecosystem. On “Hana V.2,” murky electronic tones bubble like pockets of air in pitch-black tar. Every time the track seems to settle, something interrupts, like lush washes of strings or a sharp piercing tone that returns again and again. “[Ishibashi] doesn't allow you to feel safe while you're listening to her music,” Hamaguchi recently told the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, describing how the composer’s music “seems to continuously develop without ever becoming conclusive.” This constant feeling of being on edge suits Hamaguchi’s own muted, close-to-the-chest rhythms.
Ishibashi deploys a number of subtle sounds to achieve this unsettling effect. On “Fether,” dissonant piano notes float over a shimmering metallic tone that refracts about itself like a spinning quarter. “Smoke” swells to a queasy din with moaning brass and pitter-pattering drums courtesy of regular collaborator Tatsuhisa Yamamoto, while the morbid “Deer Blood” follows a circular string melody that slowly tumbles into a dazed loop of mourning woodwinds. Ishibashi’s acoustic sounds convey this sense of the natural world pleading for its life: The title theme, which appears twice, opens the film on a long tracking shot gazing up at the sky through the trees, their skinny branches both powerful and fragile. Ishibashi, with the help of partner Jim O’Rourke on guitar, evokes the woods’ sorrow with a string theme that dips in and out between uncertainty and weeping beauty.
In Hamaguchi films, music often plays a critical, yet subservient role: When musical themes do emerge, they serve as emotional rudders to steer the long periods of silence that sit between. On screen, Evil Does Not Exist routinely cuts off the music mid-track. On record, though, Ishibashi’s disembodied chamber music is allowed to fully breathe, following her themes as far as the path will allow, even if they never quite reach clear conclusions. The cloudier nature of Ishibashi’s score leaves it feeling less like a standalone piece than the soft, jazzy pop of her Drive My Car soundtrack. But as a mirror to Hamaguchi’s tale of creeping environmental anxiety, Ishibashi’s ghostly music makes a rich companion.
