Kishi Bashi is the pseudonym of Athens, GA-based singer, songwriter, and virtuosic violinist Kaoru Ishibashi. His music is utterly unique in the original sense—that is, literally one of a kind. It is a beautiful beast catalyzed by intricate, intertwining loops of violin, which work together to create colorful emotional tapestries that are far more than the sum of their already breathtaking parts. Ishibashi’s lyrics are brainy, imaginative, and poetic musings that often read like vignettes of surrealist fantasy. 

In this 2012 Buzzsession, he performs extended versions of two tracks—the effusive and jubilant “Manchester” and the undulating, introspective “I Am The Antichrist To You”—from his debut album 151a. Pronounced ichi-go ichi-e, the album is named for a Japanese term that, as he explains, “signifies the joy or the beauty of a singular moment in time.” What’s striking is that Ishibashi’s style of performance is, in itself, a celebration of that concept: because of the spontaneous, semi-improvisational nature of looping, every performance of a given song differs from the next, each acting as its own singular moment unlike any other.