Muted Intimacy
Muted Intimacy
An Interview with Philip Shibata by Rachel Seo
Philip Shibata is proud of his vinyls.
During our Zoom call, I commented on the vinyl hanging on his door behind him. He grabs another and shows me the detailing. This vinyl—his debut full-length album Sun / Moon, released this past February—is translucent, the top half white and the bottom half ocean blue with a tinge of green. On one side, the color surrounding the center spindle is gold; on the other, a sunset orange—a duality representative of Sun / Moon itself, which brings Shibata’s flavor of Neo-soul to the forefront of his burgeoning career.
Shibata is perhaps best known for being the guitarist of Rivers & Robots, an independent Christian band led by Jonathan Ogden. The band produces refreshes of worship songs like “Be Still” and “Good Good Father” and introduces newer, folk-inspired tunes like “Shepherd of My Soul” into the Christian music lexicon. Shibata himself is thoughtful and soft-spoken, traits which carry directly over to his music. His two albums Sun / Moon and his debut EP, Seasons to Seasons (2018) comprise the beginning of his musical pursuits following a Rivers & Robots’ hiatus. But Shibata’s more recent solo efforts venture into chill hop, which is a calm, nonplussed tributary of hip-hop that can be traced back to the sixties.
If hip-hop, in a distilled, overgeneralized sense finds itself ostentatious and attention-mongering, then chill hop is the cousin that slinks out the back door at parties to listen to music in the backyard tool shed. Shibata’s soft vocals waft over a lofi beat with instruments that sound like they’re playing in your bedroom. The music videos accompanying Sun / Moon play on this idea of solitude, focusing on distinct vignettes of life in Japan: a man seeking vivre de joie in a lonely night, a schoolgirl air-playing the keyboard. Singular characters carve out space for themselves on-screen yet dwell in solitude, even when surrounded by other people. This is music for those who find muted intimacy in the everyday—solitary drives home from work, late-night study sessions when everyone else is out, unhurried early-morning walks to church. This is music for a world struck by a pandemic and music for people who, by choice or chance, find themselves alone and sometimes lonely.
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Shibata was born in Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada to Japanese missionary parents who ministered to the First Nations people. He lived in Vancouver, then moved to Japan when he was eleven. His assimilation to life in Japan precipitated his interest in music: in Japan, he felt like an outsider, finding that culture shock and the difficult language barrier made it hard for him to adapt.
Music became his solace. He acquired a taste for the jazz his father played when he was growing up. The Red Hot Chili Peppers, Tupac Shakur, and the Notorious B.I.G. all gave him the musical knowledge and space to process his feelings of being an outsider. However, it wasn’t until Shibata learned the piano and the guitar at church that he was able to properly express his style as what he now calls “parable music.”
Parable music uses storytelling as a means to convey a message, modeled after Jesus’ lessons in the New Testament. “Music was, first, a means to communicate with others,” Shibata told me. Eventually, his love of music melded with his love for the people around him and with his desire to communicate salvation and hope. “The center is Jesus,” he said. “The core is Jesus, and the way we communicate him is through storytelling and through musical feeling and vibe, too—but it’ll always link to Jesus.”
The resulting effect is art that is both recognizable and transmutable, simple but not simplistic, versatile with a cultural fluency formed from Shibata’s own experiences living abroad and collaborations with other international artists. On Sun / Moon, he collaborates with independent artists like Montell Fish, Joe Bae, Lauren Horii, and Earlybird, in addition to his former Rivers & Robots bandmate, Jonathan Ogden. Shibata has also partnered with filmmakers and videographers like Ameya and Sam Lastres. He has an ability to transcend borders, which extends to his consumers as well as his collaborators. While many of his streams come from listeners in US cities like Dallas and Los Angeles, the majority of Shibata’s vinyls have sold to people in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Thailand.
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Shibata sees his artistic complexity as a byproduct of his experiences as a child of missionaries. “Because I’ve experienced so much culture, whenever I work with other people around different cultures, it’s kind of easy because I understand what they’re going through,” he says. “I’ve realized how much we’re all alike.” By learning about the needs and desires and pain of many different people, Shibata has come to understand that the message of Christ is for everyone. This knowledge fuels his mission of making music. His music builds bridges, constructs relationships, and reaches across gaps in understanding and language, so that we might hold hands with those who also seek the things we seek—faith, joy, and salvation.
Since Shibata grew up in Japan, his knowledge of Christian culture and music artists was minimal. When he toured the world with Rivers & Robots, he shook hands with many people, including prominent pastors and public figures, but he had no idea who any of them were.
I find this ironic considering my notion of Christian music is imbued with everything that K-Love and Air1 pumped onto the radio. Shibata’s minimal exposure to “Christian” art strikes me as his biggest asset.
Not only does Shibata’s multiculturalism lend him a certain fluidity not found elsewhere, but he’s also an independent artist, resulting in a seeming blitheness towards the Powers That Be. Perhaps that’s why his music resonates: it’s made an ocean away from the American Christian Contemporary Music machine that many are accustomed to. The rise of independent artists brings a theoretical break
with industry standards—something that lends itself to unique hardship, but also brings a distinct kind of purity recognizable in Shibata’s music. Independent artists, like Shibata, display how modern technology has provided an expansive reach for art so that artists in isolation need not be lonely and paths for new voices can break through and be heard.
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After leaving Japan, Shibata lived in Germany and now resides in Manchester, UK with his wife and two kids. He is creating a new album and working closely with Ogden on Magnify Studio, a website and YouTube channel that provides a training ground and creative space for Christian artists. Shibata and Ogden are planning on hosting an online workshop in songwriting and hope to tour together again someday. Shibata’s advice for other Christians who want to make music is to not be afraid. “If you love Jesus, you feed His sheep,” he said. “If you love music, you dig deep into that music too. Feed yourself with good music, and always be hungry to learn.”
Rachel Seo
Writer & Marketing Coordinator
Rachel has been published in Christianity Today & Christ and Pop Culture
Find Philip Shibata’s Work Here