Sir Richard Bishop

Richard Bishop, guitarist and founding member of the band Sun City Girls (1981-2007), released his first solo record (Salvador Kali) in 1998 on John Fahey’s esteemed Revenant label under the moniker Sir Richard Bishop. Since then he has released albums on a variety of labels: Improvika, Elektronika Demonika, and While My Guitar Violently Bleeds (Locust Music), Fingering the Devil (Southern Records, UK), Hypostasis: A Work in Three Parts (VDSQ), Intermezzo (Editions Mego), The Unrock Tapes and Road to Siam (Unrock), Polytheistic Fragments and The Freak of Araby (Drag City), and more. His most recent release is Tangier Sessions which was recorded in Morocco using a mysterious 19th century parlor guitar. It was released by Drag City in early 2015.

“Sir Richard Bishop forces one to alter that hoary cliche to ‘jack of all trades, master of…damn near all.’ Renowned for his mercurial guitar-playing for 26 years with Seattle ethno-delic legends Sun City Girls, Bishop has wrought a distinguished solo canon as well. He combines soulfulness and advanced technique with a panache that’s nearly unrivaled among today’s guitarists. Bishop strums spiritual with incantatory ragas, free-folk excursions, crystalline flamenco flourishes, ruddy Appalachian folk, Middle Eastern-tinged fantasias and gypsy arabesques. This is eclecticism done with respect and third-eye-dilating filigree; his compositions attain a sepia-toned wistfulness and a psychedelic complexity.” - Dave Segal (OC Weekly)