Over the past few years, Kishi Bashi, the acclaimed composer and fearless multi-instrumentalist, made frequent trips to Montana and Wyoming to work on *Omoiyari*, a musical film about Japanese internment during World War II. The experience was powerful for Kishi Bashi, who researched the film (and 2019 album of the same name) by speaking with internees and descendants of the internment camp. These conversations led him to reflect on his own Japanese American identity while laying the groundwork for his forthcoming EP *Emigrant*. Within the brutal history and strict climate of the American West, he felt hope and potential, compassion and resilience. In *Emigrant*, he celebrates these qualities. Arranged and recorded over the past year, the six tracks serve as a time capsule of the 2020 condition and a follow-up to the concepts explored in *Omoiyari*. Kishi Bashi rewrites musical traditions in the image of his own experience, further embracing his love for roots music and traditional violin. Meditating on the anxieties of the COVID-19 pandemic, the comforts of nature, the pains of resource-fueled conflict, and the resilience that emerges from struggle, the *Emigrant* EP is imbued with the past even as it looks to the future. Kishi Bashi tries to show that we are all the same type of human being. We have the same desires and needs, to protect our loved ones and enjoy everyday life.