Eiko Ishibashi Scores 'Evil Does Not Exist'

The Film Scorer

Fresh off of scoring Evil Does Not Exist, composer Eiko Ishibashi joins The Film Scorer podcast! Evil Does Not Exist is Eiko's second collaboration with acclaimed director Ryusuke Hamaguchi, and the film itself actually stemmed from Eiko approaching Ryusuke regarding providing visuals for her live performance. Evil Does Not Exist grew out of that, while also spawning the film Gift, a sort of "composer's cut" of Evil Does Not Exist, which removes spoken dialogue and focuses on Eiko's music. Not surprisingly, we compare and contrast her work on Evil Does Not Exist and her prior score, Drive My Car (the Oscar winner for Best International Film). Along the way, we also cover things like Eiko's approach to music and preference to giving control to the director, trends in Japanese film music, and more.

Note that this is an interpreted interview, so you'll hear snippets of Eiko's responses in Japanese but the answers are primarily via English translation.

You can find out more about Eiko on her website. Eiko's score releases digitally and on physical media on June 28, and Evil Does Not Exist is currently in theaters.