Eiko Ishibashi and director Ryusuke Hamaguchi both enjoy the unresolved. Ishibashi's music has veered between toy-box art punk, open-open free jazz, zig-zagging classical piano and dreamy industrialism, now arriving at a tense, quietly graceful form of musique concrete, in which it's never obvious what's next. Hamaguchi, meanwhile, has steadily built a body of work delving into the everyday unknown. The most mundane moments in his films hold the potential for strange twists, vulnerable revelations and open-hearted catharsis. Ishibashi's soundtrack to Hamaguchi's acclaimed 2021 film Drive My Car not only did it provide a sweet, sighing counterpoint to the film's explosive quest for closure, but it also provided some of Ishibashi's most beautiful music to date. It was so successful that the two teamed up once again, this time for a project of a very different nature.
Ishibashi wrote it Drive My Car score based on the visuals Hamaguchi sent her, along with reference points (a theme song in the vein of Henry Mancini, music that sounds “like a landscape,” she said Variety). But Evil does not exist took shape more holistically. The project began when Ishibashi asked Hamaguchi for images to accompany a new live show she was working on, titled Gift. After a visit to her studio a few hours outside of Tokyo—where, amid the serene surroundings, the two discussed the relationship between cities and nature—Hamaguchi began writing a story about a small rural community that is upset when a glub company moves in and threatens to contaminate their water supply. Hamaguchi ended up making an entire film around the narrative, and in turn, Ishibashi completed her score to match.
Evil does not exist It is not a plot heavy movie. As the spectacular resort plans how to set up shop in the village, Ishibashi's music – the secret heart of the story – drives the uneasy balance between the peaceful snowy countryside and the awkward citizens trying to enter its ecosystem. In “Hana V.2”, dark electronic tones bubble up like air pockets in black tar. Every time the track seems to come to an end, something interrupts, like lush string growth or a sharp piercing tone that returns again and again. “[Ishibashi] it doesn't allow you to feel safe while listening to her music,” Hamaguchi recently told the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, describing how the composer's music “seems to be constantly developing without ever becoming definitive.” This constant sense of being on edge suits Hamaguchi's own hushed, close-to-the-chest beats.
