Sir Richard Bishop
Hypnotic, globetrotting solo guitar work that wanders through Middle Eastern ragas, Spanish flamenco, and dusty American primitive folk. For late-night wanderers.
Hypnotic, globetrotting solo guitar work that wanders through Middle Eastern ragas, Spanish flamenco, and dusty American primitive folk. For late-night wanderers.
Sir Richard Bishop plays the guitar like a medium channeling spirits from ancient trade routes. His music is a hypnotic, deeply transportive blend of acoustic fingerpicking, raga-like improvisations, and dusty, sun-baked desert blues. It feels ancient and immediate all at once, stripping away the excess of modern production to focus entirely on the expressive power of six steel strings.
What makes Bishop truly distinctive is his restless, global musical vocabulary. While his roots lie in the American primitive tradition championed by John Fahey, he quickly veers off into North African scales, Indian classical structures, and Spanish flamenco flourishes. His style is characterized by microtonal bends, rapid-fire picking, and a willingness to let the guitar buzz, rattle, and breathe naturally.
To begin this journey, queue up Salvador Kali or Tangier Sessions. These albums showcase his incredible ability to conjure vast, cinematic landscapes with nothing more than a single acoustic instrument. It is the perfect soundtrack for solo travel, deep focus, or quiet, contemplative late nights when you want to let your mind drift across borders.
Richard Bishop is an American composer, guitarist and singer best known for his work with the Sun City Girls. He styles himself Sir Richard Bishop. In 2005, Bishop began performing as a solo artist, playing throughout Europe, Australia, and the United States. He has done extensive touring with Will Oldham (Bonnie Prince Billy), Animal Collective, Devendra Banhart, Bill Callahan, and many others. Bishop’s first official solo record, Salvador Kali, was released by John Fahey’s esteemed Revenant Records label in 1998. The album showcases Bishop's own particular obsessions and roots, drawing from a variety of worldwide sources. Locust Music issued his second record, Improvika, in 2004. This album consists of nine extemporaneous pieces for solo acoustic guitar. Up next was Fingering the Devil, which was recorded at an impromptu session at London’s Southern Studios on a day off from the 2005 European tour. This was followed by two more releases from Locust: Elektronika Demonika, a recording of electronics, containing no guitar at all; and While My Guitar Violently Bleeds, which is made up of three extended compositions for acoustic and electric guitar. Richard's 30-minute film God Damn Religion was released on DVD by Locust in 2006. 2007 saw the first Sir Richard release from the Drag City label, Polytheistic Fragments. It includes works for acoustic, electric and lapsteel guitar, plus two piano compositions. Next up was The Freak of Araby (Drag City, 2009). This was the first Bishop album to feature a full band of supporting musicians. The record is a tribute to late Egyptian guitarist Omar Khorshid as well as to Middle Eastern music. In May 2010, Drag City released the album False Flag by Rangda, a new group featuring Bishop, Ben Chasny (Six Organs of Admittance, Comets on Fire), and Chris Corsano (Flower-Corsano Duo, Flaherty/Corsano, Jandek, Björk, etc). Bishop was a founding member (along with brother Alan Bishop) of experimental rock band Sun City Girls, who during their 26 years (1981–2007), produced an extensive discography of over 50 full length albums, 20 one-hour cassettes and a dozen 7” records. In the early 1980s he was also a member of the group Paris 1942 which included Alan Bishop, Jesse Akkari. Bennie Baresi, David Oliphant and former Velvet Underground drummer Moe Tucker. In 2003, Richard Bishop, along with Alan Bishop and Hisham Mayet, founded the Sublime Frequencies label, dedicated to acquiring and releasing obscure sights and sounds from Africa, India, S.E. Asia and beyond.
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