Big tip! Antigone is Eiko Ishibashi’s latest musical masterwork, one rife with chilling speculations for the future calling from inside her own head. Out March 28th, it marks Eiko’s first “traditional” songcraft album — that is, with lyrics and singing — since 2018’s acclaimed The Dream My Bones Dream, arriving on the heels of her celebrated soundtracks for Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s films. Within Antigone, Eiko teases out images from a dystopia not unlike the one we’ve already got. Hers is suffused with a ‘scene missing’ quality, its continuity laced with sudden, odd details sprung like traps from within her music’s smooth, expansive sound.

Interlocking her new songs in seamless long-play flow with the compositional ambitions of her acclaimed soundtrack work, Eiko’s expressions are epic and intimate. Her early song-based albums — 2013’s sci-fi-themed Imitation of Life and 2014’s poptastic Car and Freezer — suggested an album-oriented direction; 2018’s conceptually-united The Dream My Bones Dream allowed Eiko to tell stories closer to home. Her instrumental works since then — 2022’s For McCoy (Black Truffle) and her celebrated soundtracks for Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s films, Drive My Car and Evil Does Not Exist — have seen her diversity of musical ideas operating in an increasingly integrated long-form presentation. With these transformative encounters in hand, Eiko and her band — drummer Tatsuhisa Yamamoto, bassist Marty Holoubek, Norwegian accordionist Kalle Moberg, ermhoi on backing vocals, Joe Talia playing percussion, and Jim O’Rourke on Bass VI, synths, etc. — bring a wide array of sounds and moods to Antigone, referencing pop, funk and jazz, ambient, electronic and musique concrète in a seamless flow.

Antigone is a bittersweet look at our already-alternate reality, Eiko’s jarringly personal vision glimpsed through a latticework of ambitious compositions and on-lock production techniques. At last!