Sir Richard Bishop
Sir Richard’s guitar explorations often reflect the shadow worlds of India, North Africa and the Middle East, and other points along the Gypsy trail, though many strange and experimental forms have crept into the live shows as of late. One can usually recognize the influences of Omar Khorshid, Django Reinhardt, Ali Akbar Khan and Ravi Shankar in his playing, though he has fused these and many other influential elements into his own unique style.
Sir Richard’s guitar explorations often reflect the shadow worlds of India, North Africa and the Middle East, and other points along the Gypsy trail, though many strange and experimental forms have crept into the live shows as of late. One can usually recognize the influences of Omar Khorshid, Django Reinhardt, Ali Akbar Khan and Ravi Shankar in his playing, though he has fused these and many other influential elements into his own unique style.
Oneiric Formulary
Master of myriad styles, Sir Rick Bishop takes in baroque, flamenco, surf, and harder to place fusions of phantasmagoric sound design, Gaelic folk and Indian Raga, and more lysergic expression in this bounty of a new album.
Five years after Tangier Sessions, Sir Richard Bishop, we presume, is back from his travels around the world. With Oneiric Formulary, he’s dug deeper into his bag of extra-musical gestures from the eternal and unknowable, along with a few sounds we might recognize, all transm…
Sir Richard Bishop and Ed Yazijian
Yet another luxurious spectacle from the Saraswati Series. Ex-Sun City Girls master guitarist Richard Bishop teams up with Cul De Sac’s long time Girls live collaborator Ed Yazijian. Two Grand Seigneurs of underground deliver an unique album deeply Western rooted, filled with the musical spirit and structures of Indian music at the same time. Elegant interplay, brilliantly arranged, using mostly guitar (lapsteel, tenor) and strings (viola), and some Indian stringed instrument which I can’t prono…
Carte Blanche
It took more than just some time and imagination to believe that 'Carte Blanche' , this piece of astonishing contemporary music by some of the most talented and able musicians of the international avant-circuit, could be realized. Karkhana, a highly explosive mostly Middle Eastern / Mediterranean ensemble - Sam Shalabi Land of Kush, Shalabi Effect, Dwarfs of East Agouza), Sharif Sehnaoui (“A” Trio), Michael Zerang (Peter Brötzmann, Hamid Drake, Jaap Blonk, Vandermark, etc.) Mazen Kerbaj (“A” Tri…
Beyond All Defects: Mount Meru Anthology Series Vol. 1
Clear vinyl; Edition of 500.
Although Sir Richard Bishop (SRB) and W. David Oliphant (WDO) worked together periodically in the '80s through Sun City Girls and Maybe Mental,
they never set out to simply work together as a duo. Fast forward to
2011, SRB, feeling the need to temporarily step out of his solo guitar
zone, approached WDO with the idea of this joint collaboration... Beyond All Defects was composed and recorded live in the studio in Phoenix, Arizona in December of 2011 (remastered …
Strange Fruit
Limited edition four-track split vinyl 10" featuring legendary Sun City Girls Alan and Richard Bishop, celebrating Unrock's 25th anniversary. It features the first new recordings by Sir Richard Bishop since his 2015 Tangier Sessions and two exclusive pearls by Alan Bishop, aka Alvarius B. All tracks are exclusive to this "Unrock 25" release. Includes printed lyrics sheet. Limited one-time pressing.
Salvador Kali
Exiled Records is very excited to present the first ever vinyl edition of Sir Richard Bishop's Salvador Kali. Originally released on cd by John Fahey's Revenant in 1998. This was released following a run of peak Sun City Girls activity (330,003 Crossdressers, Dante's Disneyland Inferno) and came as something of a shock; a stunningly beautiful instrumental album that was entirely accessible! Composed and recorded free of the burden of expectation, his debut album marked Bishop as a force operatin…
Tangier Sessions
"The tone of the guitar and Sir Richard's gentle, loving touch with it hold forth from the first moment of Tangier Sessions, sitting clear and true in the home-recorded night air above the city. The album sequence is the precise order of the songs as they were conceived and recorded. Rick's all over the neck in the early going while sorting through the dynamics of the instrument -- in fact, guitarophiles, the first couple of songs feature Sir Richard Bishop playing without a plectrum for the fir…
Solo Acoustic Volume Eight
2015 restock. "First new solo acoustic recordings from the master guitarist in years, SRB returns to familiar themes and introduces new ideas simultaneously on this tour de force performance of his singular style."
"Need flamenco picking on the streets, but Jungian consciousness symbols in the sheets? Sleepy & even polite on the surface, due to SRB borrowing someone's very un-Andalusian acoustic while staying by Lake Geneva in Switzerland for several months to work with a dance troupe. Undern…
Road Stories (Kali)
The first installment in Unrock's new string wringer Saraswati Series presents two of today's most extraordinary guitar maniacs captured on location. While Bill Orcutt, "Re-inventor of the Blues," falls from abstraction into acoustic hardcore serenade on his wooden 4-string guitar, the Kali-inspired Sir Richard Bishop improvises elegantly and calmly through a feverish 17-minute variation of "Zurvan." Limited edition of 700 numbered copies. 180 gram vinyl, ncludes a solid cardboard info s…
The Unrock Tapes
Repressed. After having released records on labels such as Locust, Drag City and John Fahey's Revenant, Richard Bishop's The Unrock Tapes contains eight complete tracks, six of which are highlights taken from earlier tour CD-Rs that were released on micro-editions years ago. They have never been available on vinyl. Two completely new and unreleased songs make this album even more special. Bishop's guitar-playing skills contain a variety of influences. They could arouse the absurd impression…
Intermezzo
I met Richard in 2004 on a crazy tour in Australia (Oren Ambarchi's last What is Music?). He was a founding member of The Sun City Girls but he came out to play solo. Instantly we were entranced by his playing, so many beautiful elements of why I love guitar come through in his music and presence, without floating around in genre space at all. Here on the road with Kevin Drumm, Dead C, Residents, Gang Gang Dance, Black Dice, etc amongst this insane lineup Richard ended up supporting Pan S…
The Freak Of Araby
Strictly limited edition on vinyl: Listen through Sir Richard Bishop’s six readily available solo albums, and you get the picture that the worldview of the former Sun City Girls’ guitarist is not only complex, but also more than a little ambiguous. What exactly is Richard Bishop? A dealer in the exotic? A dabbler in esoteric mysticism? A “traveling salesman”? The Freak of Araby doesn’t make Bishop’s worldview any simpler for us, but it does clarify it some. He is, first and foremost, a traveler,…
God Damn Religion
This film is a diabolical experiment in hypnotic mind control-a phantasmagoric presentation of demonic & divine imagery, meticulously assembled & designed to put the viewer into an altered state of darkened awareness. First edition comes w/ bonus audio CD of the quasi soundtrack Elektronika Demonika. Official dvd release of Richard Bishop's cracked movie God Damn Religion. First edition comes with a bonus audio cd of the quasi soundtrack Elektronika Demonika. For centuries, man has used organize…
While My Guitar Violently Bleeds
Violently Bleeds" This is an essential document by one of America's most original & inventive unaccompanied guitarists working today. It's a splendid three piece gem in which the good Sir branches out & nods to points west, east & otherworldly. Classic spaghetti western tinged spidery fretwork, Fushitsusha style feedback drenched psych decay & a brilliant lengthy raga epic round out the proceedings by the SUN CITY GIRLS master musician“Bishop displays a virtuosity that borders on the flabbergast…
Polytheistic Fragments
Last copies: as a member of SUN CITY GIRLS & co-founder of the Sublime Frequencies label, he's a comfortable traveler in the vast landscape of ethno-musical tradition & renowned for his prowess & mastery w/ the guitar, but the piano playing shows a fluid, meditative style. In a record w/ so many spirits, Bishop fills in the space where necessary & rounds out the feeling w/ catchy tunes. This shows that the divinely inspired Sir Richard Bishop cannot be contained in one form." Fragments is a spec…
improvika
By trade Sir Richard Bishop is a dealer of rare occult books and fine paper ephemera. For many in the musical cosmos, he has occasion to travel the smoke filled carnie circuit as 1/3 of the Sun City Girls medicine show. But in the twilight hours of a shadow world sensed only by few, Bishop is a dazzling unaccompanied guitarist. On Improvika, Bishop rides a very tall horse through a surrealist's cowboy set that's 1 part bruit Peckinpah muscularity & 2 parts illuminated Jodorowskian symbolism. A v…