In 2005 Sir Richard 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.
Sir Richard’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.
Sir Richard Bishop | Untitled
http://https://youtube.com/watch?v=RonH58UtsaE
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.
Sir Richard Bishop | God Damn Religion
http://https://youtube.com/watch?v=anr1KEdeNas
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 Sir Richard 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).
Sir Richard Bishop | Saraswati
http://https://youtube.com/watch?v=qlm3vxgEM8I
Ian Nagoski returns to Europe for another series of his hypnotic interactive lectures on disappearing music of the 20th Century, this time with an exploration entitled “100 Moons: Stories of Great Forgotten Musicians and the Boundaries of Humanness from 78rpm Records”.
Ian Nagoski’s label Canary Records (pressed and distributed by the excellent Mississippi Records) reissues early 20th century recordings in languages other than English. In the past year, he has published acclaimed collections of Hindustani classical vocal music (100 Moons and Kesarbai Kerkar 1944-54), Greek urban folk music (Rita Abatzi – 1933-37), the Austro-Hungarian Empire (Widow’s Joy: Eastern European Immigrant Dances, 1925-30), and published writing in Yeti, Sound American, Ephemerotera Quarterly and The Wire.
Ian Nagoski | To What A Strange Place
Canary’s Bandcamp site was compared favorably by Damon Krukowski in Pitchfork to Revenant Records and Jack White’s Third Man label, and Nagoski’s deep views on music and recording caused Krukowski to compare him to Harry Smith, just as Marcus Boon also did in the Wire.
In recent years, he also published compilations on the Dust-to-Digital (Black Mirror: Reflections in Global Musics) and Tompkins Square (To What Strange Place: Music of the Ottoman-American Diaspora) labels. Nagoski’s work is now highly regarded, with high profile admirers ranging from DJ/rupture to Henry Rollins, and you can also still read several interview with and articles by him from 2013 at the Sound American site.
Ian Nagoski | Lecture
‘Lecture’ may seem too formal a term for something so immersive and transporting as one of Ian’s 90-minute explorations of the disappearing music he unearths and its social/cultural roots and routes. Ian shares his love of his findings both in words and by listening to and discussing various carefully chosen shellac gems with you.
“Nagoski is a Walter Benjamin visionary, using his collection of 78s to hallucinate a history that actually happened but which remains hidden beneath official dogma and nationalisms.” – Marcus Boon, the Wire
“Since The Devil Is Gone I Mostly Feel Lonely” presents:
Sir Richard Bishop – Concert
+ Ian Nagoski – Lecture & Dj-Set: “100 Moons: Stories of Great Forgotten Musicians and the Boundaries of Humanness from 78rpm Records”
Sunday, 27 April 2014 | 20:00 CET
Monarch | Skalitzer Str. 134 | 10999 Berlin/Kreuzberg
sirrichardbishop.net | canaryrecords.tumblr.com | kottimonarch.de
