Sonderlust

Sonderlust is the third full-length album by the Japanese violinist K. Ishibashi, known to his fans as Kishi Bashi. Typified by his looping, deep orchestral arrangements, and soaring violin, Kishi Bashi continues this trend on this album, building layer upon layer. This album features more synth and drum machine than his previous works, giving the album a poppier and more accessible feel than his previous works.

In an interview with NPR’s All Songs Considered, Ishibashi said that the title comes from the word “sonder” in The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows, a collection of invented words. Sonder means “the realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own—populated with their own ambitions, friends, routines, worries and inherited craziness—an epic story that continues invisibly around you like an anthill sprawling deep underground, with elaborate passageways to thousands of other lives that you’ll never know existed, in which you might appear only once, as an extra sipping coffee in the background, as a blur of traffic passing on the highway, as a lighted window at dusk.”