Kishi Bashi :: "Philosophize In It! Chemicalize With It!"

A spinning and home-spun arrangement, Kishi Bashi returns with "Philosophize In It! Chemicalize With It!". His trade-mark string concoctions and plucks - a feature of his time as touring violinist for Of Montreal, as well as his stunning debut last year - appear only at the opening and closing of this A-side from coming 7" single. The rest of the track is an ebullient guitar progression colored with hand-claps and a winning hook. The arrangement's swimming qualities, awash in a sea of sonics, recall the Flaming Lips, Animal Collective and some of David Byrne's most confessional moments, a moment locked between theory and chemistry.

Kishi Bashi :: "It All Began With A Burst"

For a second the glittering electronics offer a vivid flashback to Animal Collective's "My Girls". It's a dream, Kishi Bashi stuttering a bit to turn over the engine on the bizarre, colliding pop arrangement of stunning single, "It All Began With A Burst". But what begins with fits and starts - at first, synth loops and hand claps, vocal yelps and melody all tuning against each other like a Bushwick orchestra (editorial note: Kishi Bashi are not from Bushwick) - finds a down-beat, pulling all these disparate elements into synchronization, something approaching linear, ordered time. Of course, like any good slice of magic realism it is only engages formal structures as a method of bending and exploding them, holding together just long enough for the viewer to notice when things falls apart. The title lyric - noticeably also the chorus, such as there is one - serves as the marching orders, an arrangement percolating and yelping as it tears its own periphery and the listener can't help clap in time.

Listen :: Kishi Bashi - "It All Began With A Burst"