Eiko Ishibashi :: For McCoy / Drive My Car OST

In a series of interviews with Tone Glow’s Joshua Minsoo Kim, Eiko Ishibashi and Jim O’Rourke shared why they watch Law & Order each night while cooking dinner. “I love how the show always has the same structure, how the first half is about pursuing the criminal and the second half is about how they’re gonna get him in jail,” she explained, and it’s easy to understand how the procedural crime drama offered a comforting sense of predictability during the pandemic. Ishibashi’s favorite character, Jack McCoy—played by Sam Waterston from 1994 until the series’ finale in 2010, and returning soon—became such a constant presence in their kitchen that she decided to dedicate an album to the densely eyebrowed district attorney, using music to imagine the offscreen events of his personal life.

For McCoy was initially self-released on Bandcamp in March 2021, and has now received a vinyl edition from Black Truffle with a new mix from O’Rourke. In the album’s original version, its primary suite “I can feel guilty about anything” sprawled across 35 minutes with the sparse opening fanfare of flutes descending into ominous electronic tones and ghostly hints of jazz. The album’s new mix uses the LP sides to split this piece in two, making the sudden appearance of Ishibashi’s vaporous vocals in its second half seem even more astonishing. For McCoy concludes with the relatively brief “Ask me how I sleep at night,” neatly tying its sonic strands together with a noir-jazz double bass groove from O’Rourke and drummer Tatsuhisa Yamamoto. As the now familiar flute melody returns, it feels like watching McCoy bringing this episode’s case to a close, exactly how it was expected.

Ishibashi takes a similarly circuitous route on her score for Drive My Car, director Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s extended cinematic adaptation of a short story by Haruki Murakami. The slow-moving meditation on grief revolves around a multilingual production of Chekov’s Uncle Vanya, but its most important scenes take place in a red Saab 900 Turbo darting across the countryside surrounding Hiroshima. Sampling the sounds of a clicking cassette or the hum of the highway, Ishibashi conjures the daily commutes of a depressed theatre actor and his young chauffeur, repeatedly drifting through different versions of the same two songs. Ishibashi and O’Rourke each play an array of instruments, with Tatsuhisa Yamamoto back on softly brushed drums, and Atsuko Hatano’s sweeping strings providing some of the most transportative moments. 

The music of Drive My Car is undoubtedly poppier and more predictable than For McCoy, but both works highlight the intimate bonds formed through repetition. By cruising the same roads every day (or watching endless episodes of Law & Order) it can be possible to discover changes in our companions, and eventually, hopefully, in ourselves. |  j locke

Only the good shit. Aquarium Drunkard is powered by its patrons. Keep the servers humming and help us continue doing it by pledging your support via our Patreon page. For heads, by heads