Bashi may be best musician you’ve never heard of

Composer, violinist and bandleader Kishi Bashi may be the most famous multi-instrumentalist you’ve never heard of. Since releasing his debut album 151a in 2021, he’s made a career out of unexpected musical fusion.

See for yourself May 1, when Bashi takes the stage at the Music Farm to perform a retrospective set — his version of Taylor Swift’s Eras tour, if you will. The show features selections from his recording career, which consists of five studio albums, two live albums, four EPs and two soundtracks.

Multi-instrumentalist Kishi Bashi will perform at the Music Farm on May 1. He has been a part of bands including Of Montreal and toured with Regina Spektor. | Rob Williamson

“It’s very intimate,” Bashi said in an interview. “We’re all plugged in and we all sing, so we have these three-part harmonies, and it’s just very intimate. It gets exciting, obviously, but it’s also very beautiful. When you don’t have drums, you can hear the acoustics of the instruments and it makes for a chamber-like sound.”

Bashi has spent nearly 15 years blending his soaring classical violin with electronic dance beats that are in deep funk grooves, massive, overdubbed vocal harmonies and, above all else, epic, cinematic melodies that seem as big as the horizon. Maybe that cinematic feel is why his music has been used extensively in films and on TV shows, most notably Rick & Morty, Banana Split, The Babysitter’s Club and Into The Dark, as well as in ads for Microsoft and Sony.

And since he’s always been a fan of changing up things, Bashi’s ensemble for this tour features just three musicians: him on violin, a banjo player and a cellist rather than a full band.
The show will be as informal as its setup is unusual, Bashi said.

“We’ll do a few songs from each album and then talk about where I was at the time,” he said. “I’ll do some bantering with my bandmates about our adventures and how we felt when we were developing the songs.”

In fact, Bashi specifically mentioned being excited about the Charleston show because he hasn’t performed here in a while.

“I have to do the fan favorites because people get mad sometimes if you don’t,” he laughed, “but it’s been a long time since we’ve been to Charleston, so we’ll probably throw in some songs that I have never performed or deep cuts that we don’t normally do.”

In addition to his long solo career, Bashi has also been part of several bands, including Of Montreal and Jupiter One, and he’s toured as a violinist with artists like Regina Spektor. But he said that being on his own is what’s allowed him to flourish.

“As a solo artist, I feel like I have the benefit of not being pigeon-holed into anything,” he said. “I can just pivot and do whatever I want because I am an artist. I can decide I don’t want too much drumming in the next song, or I want to be more orchestral, or I want to use electronics.”

“In a band setting, you really can’t do that,” he added. “Your bass player and your drummer are going, ‘What am I going to play?’ This is not music by committee, and so I think as a solo artist, you can be eclectic.”

And eclecticism is exactly what Bashi’s fans respond to, streaming his music millions of times since 2012.

“I think they feel the humanity in my music,” he said of his fans. “I think they like how eclectic I am, how I change things and how I’m always inspired by new things. And I think they feel that inspiration in the music.”

Kishi Bashi performs with Elizabeth & the Catapult at Music Farm on May 1 at 8 p.m. $22+. For tickets, visit musicfarm.com.

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