Sir Richard Bishop & Cian Nugent next month in London!

Upset The Rhythm presents…

SIR RICHARD BISHOP

CIAN NUGENT


Thursday 8 November


Bethnal Green Working Men’s Club, 44 Pollard Row, E2 6NB


7:30pm | £10 | http://www.wegottickets.com/event/450811

SIR RICHARD BISHOP is an experimental guitarist whose improvisations and compositions often reflect the shadow worlds of India, the Middle East, North Africa, and other points along the Gypsy trail. Richard is perhaps best known as a founding member (along with brother Alan Bishop) of experimental ethnic-improv pioneers and underground tricksters Sun City Girls, who for nearly 30 years have produced an extensive discography of over 50 full length albums, 20 one-hour cassettes and a dozen 7" records. Sun City Girls formed in 1981 after the Bishop brothers' stint in the group Paris 1942 which also featured J. Akkari and former Velvet Underground drummer Moe Tucker.

Richard's first solo record, Salvador Kali, was released by John Fahey's esteemed Revenant label in 1998 under the moniker Sir Richard Bishop (the name stuck). 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 release consists of nine extemporaneous and free-flowing pieces for solo acoustic guitar. In 2005, Bishop began performing relentlessly as a solo artist, playing throughout Europe, Australia, and the United States. He has not stopped since. 2007 saw the album Polytheistic Fragments released on the Drag City Label. It includes works for acoustic, electric and lapsteel guitar, plus two piano compositions. Next up was The Freak of Araby (Drag City, 2009). In May of 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, Bjork, etc). Richard teamed up with fellow guitarist Bill Orcutt in 2014 for the excellent Road Stories album on Unrock, whilst Drag City again released his most recent solo record, Tangier Sessions. This album sees Bishop's music driven by clever stylistic juxtapositions and attractive melodicism, showcasing his love of Andulsian flamenco guitar style, infusing it with gestures from across Morocco's borders. Richard was also a co-founder of the Sublime Frequencies label (with Alan Bishop and Hisham Mayet). The label, whose mission is dedicated to acquiring and releasing obscure sights and sounds from Africa, India, S.E. Asia and beyond, began in 2003 and currently has over 110 releases to its credit.
http://www.sirrichardbishop.net/

CIAN NUGENT is a mercurial guitar player and composer from Dublin, Ireland. Cian combines personal passions, such as suburban/coastal blues, traditional musics, late 1960s-'70s singer-songwriters, jazz ambitions, 20th century composition and the Takoma school into a deeply personal style. New album, 'Night Fiction' is Cian Nugent's third album but his first taking on the role of singer-songwriter. Where his previous two albums: 2013's 'Born With The Caul' and 2011's 'Doubles' saw him exploring extended guitar based instrumentals with his band, The Cosmos, here he has reigned things in and focused his songwriting skills. Guitar fans, do not fear, there is still plenty of soloing and fingerpicking here. With 7 songs both solo and with his band, this album amalgamates everything Cian has done up to this point and reveals a more broad palate of influences, including The Velvet Underground, Richard Thompson, Television, Neil Young, John Lennon, Fred Neil, etc. Cian will perform this show as a trio showcasing lots of songs from his recent album,'Night Fiction', out now on Woodsist.

https://soundcloud.com/cian-nugent

PAN AMERICAN & RATTLE show this November: Full listing!

Upset The Rhythm presents…

PAN AMERICAN

RATTLE


Wednesday 7 November


Redon, Railway Arches, 289 Cambridge Heath Rd, London, E2 9HA


7.30pm | £8 | http://www.wegottickets.com/event/451432

PAN AMERICAN began during the summer of 1997, Mark Nelson started recording a full length album for kranky at home and at Sound of Music Studios in Richmond, Virginia. Mark Nelson had been playing guitar and singing in Labradford, but wanted to explore the possibilities of sampling and computer technology as well as his interests in dub and techno. The self-titled, debut Pan American album came out on kranky in early 1998. Nelson continued to work on Pan American material as he worked with Labradford, learning to play pedal steel guitar, releasing singles on European labels and getting some studio time in with engineer Casey Rice. Rob Mazurek from Chicago Underground Trio and Alan Sparhawk and Mimi Parker of Low contributed cornet and vocals, respectively. The resulting album, 360 Business / 360 Bypass, was released by kranky in North America (and Blast First in Europe) in early 2000.

After some landmark albums tracing out his territory of sternum-rattling bass rhythms, rippling electronics and outbursts of static with a dub undertow, Pan American slipped back into our consciousness after a break with Cloud Room, Glass Room (Kranky 2013), now adding the estimable talents of Steven Hess (Cleared/Haptic) and Nelson's former Labradford bandmate, Robert Donne to the project. While Nelson assuredly handles all production, the live feel is definitely more prominent, folding in the patter of Hess's percussion and Bobby Donne's languid bass at the centre of seven beautifully diffuse soundscapes bordering on the frontier lands of post-rock, dub techno and ambient electronica, yet never clearly falling within any one sector. Every element is given ample room to breathe thanks to Nelson's typically intricate production render, allowing Hess's hi-hats and cymbal strokes to really shimmer and Donne's bass to ring out wide and sag purposefully low, but you're never really focussed on either, the emphasis is on the whole ecology of sound and the way it's all in fragile and comfortingly sublime equilibrium; a cats cradle of ambient lushness intended to suspend the listener, pensile in its womb-like amniotic fluidity. In these days Nelson is working on his new project Anjou (2 albums on Kranky) and the next Pan American album.
http://www.kranky.net/artists/panamerican.html

RATTLE are a Nottingham based duo, Rattle focus almost exclusively on drums and more drums, beneath a delicate overlay of vocal harmonies and percussive effects. Formed by Katharine Eira Brown (also of Kogumaza) and Theresa Wrigley (also of Fists), Rattle began as an experiment in crafting rich songs and melody using drums and voice alone. Their music weaves and intertwines post-punk, minimalism and experimental rock, through off-kilter rhythms, patterns and counter melodies. Often starting by picking out the ghost notes from the drums to develop a melody, the song then reveals itself in rounds and harmonies with layer upon layer of rhythm and vocal, lending a choral feel to some of the tracks. Rattle effortlessly blend the avant-garde with irresistible melodies and hypnotic drum beats, using rhythm and harmony to create a refreshing sound that is utterly new - a pretty rare feat these days when we're saturated with so much music. Rattle's debut self-titled album will be released on Upset The Rhythm and I Own You, look out this November for it's exquisite, follow up entitled ‘Sequence’.
https://www.facebook.com/rattleandrattle/

Vital Idles: Marc Riley session

Vital Idles performed four songs and had a funny chat with Marc Riley last night on his BBC 6 Music radio show! 

LISTEN AGAIN HERE: https://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/play/m0000mz3

x

Virginia Wing this Thursday, Hekla next Monday!

Hello again!   Propulsive, progressive synth pop, offbeat rapture and wild energy are all the order of week. Our next show is knocking on the front door! This Thursday, Upset The Rhythm are setting up camp at Oslo in Hackney for a solid-gold concert featuring Virginia Wing, Trash Kit and Mich Cota. Virginia Wing made one of our favourite albums of the year, packed full of maximal pop, deadbeat-disco and utopian vision, so it’s a real treat to host them.   We haven’t recovered since the last time we saw Trash Kit play Café OTO either, what a jaw-drop performance. Is there a more inventive, inspiring and invigorating live group out there? Not likely! Opening the show we are also very lucky to have the swoonsome imaginings of Mich Cota to contend with. Live music will commence shortly after 8pm, with tickets costing £8 in advance and on the door from 7.30pm. See you there.

Our other upcoming live ventures are outlined below too. Next Monday night sees us head to Servant Jazz Quarters for a special evening of otherworldly sound from Hekla, Ingrid Plum / Alex Ward / Yoni Silver and A Lily. Acting as the album release for Berlin-residing Icelander Hekla’s debut album of theremin and vocal ambience, this show is going to explore new dimensions of atmosphere and exploration.   October 23rd’s Moth Club concert for The Space Lady and Spinning Coin is also profiled below, very exciting! What an October we have planned for you with Eartheater, Jo Passed, Brigid Mae Power and Grouper all playing too!

We also confirmed a brand new show for song-warper par excellence Eric Chenaux this last week. December 5th is the date for your diaries, The Islington the venue in question, tickets now on sale.   Furthermore, Cian Nugent has just been announced as main support for Sir Richard Bishop this November, what a night that’ll be!

In other show related news, we have a whole horde of photographs that just went up here of all our 2018 shows to date, including recent outings for Wolf Eyes, Terry, Escape-ism, Lithics, Patsy, Screaming Females, Prolapse and Shannon And The Clams! Check that out here.

Upset The Rhythm presents…   VIRGINIA WING TRASH KIT MICH COTA Thursday 11 October OSLO, 1a Amhurst Road, Hackney, London, E8 1LL 7.30pm | £8 | TICKETS   VIRGINIA WING are an inventive psych-pop duo based in Manchester, who take their name from Grace Slick's mother. Consisting of Alice Merida Richards (Vocals, Synths, Organ) and Samuel Pillay (Synths, guitar, noises, bass), their music is a sprawling amalgamation of experimental pop songs with texture, depth and nuance; daring, progressive and forever bold. After two previous stunning albums, Virginia Wing return on June 8th with renewed strength, optimism and clarity for their new album 'Ecstatic Arrow' (Fire Records). 'Ecstatic Arrow' borrows from the heterogeneous terrain of The Flying Lizard's 'Fourth Wall', the exuberant technology assisted pop of Yellow Magic Orchestra and the playful sophistication of Lizzy Mercier Descloux, arriving at the evergreen intersection of pop music and conceptual art. The voice of Alice Merida Richards is more compelling and expressive than ever. The glacial deadpan of previous records has given way to a more candid, self-possessed delivery, showing an appreciation for the humour and tragedy innate in the downtown Arcadia of Laurie Anderson, Robert Ashley or even Lynn Goldsmith's Will Powers. It's with this voice that Richards outlines a simple ideality that fortifies the entirety of the album - inequality pervades, destructive behaviours are inherited and each subsequent generation has to reconcile the debts of its precursor - yet a space exists within ourselves and each other that houses a fact we must be reminded of - we have the ability to choose. https://virginiawingmusic.bandcamp.com/ TRASH KIT are Rachel Aggs, Rachel Horwood and Gill Partington. They have a wild feel for melody, writing songs that pull at the reins with a spontaneous charm. Their music is primal yet thoughtful, affirming yet sincere, drawing on the potential of post-punk and the naturalism of an internal folk music. Although Trash Kit have their forebears in bands like X-Ray Spex, The Ex and The Raincoats, their sound is very much their own take on facing forwards. Galloping polyrhythms, overlapping sung-spoke lyrics and entwining guitars are all drawn together into a taut unity, sounding wilfully alive. Both Rachels tangle their vocals with each other whilst expressive drumbeats and restless guitar flurries provide the rhythmic drive. Trash Kit's music is full of pauses, woven silence and punctuation too, and this is where the resonant bass lines find a perfect home. With two albums under their belt for Upset The Rhythm, Trash Kit are currently adding the finishing touches to their incredible third record. https://www.facebook.com/TRASH-KIT-329766302806/ MICH COTA’s identity has always been ingrained with the language of sound. As a two-spirit woman, raised by a native father and a white mother in Southern Ontario, Cota began composing small melodies on the piano from the age of three to create her own sacred space in an intensely religious home. Inspired by her countryside surroundings, she would ingrain herself in nature, imagining herself in a place free of theology and restraint. This is something Cota has carried with her throughout her creative existence. Her music is a way of navigating past traumas while exploring her queer experience, with open, unapologetic sincerity. It's through her artistic expression that she relates to others, to build collective understanding and empathy, with the intention to heal and to challenge normative ways of being. https://www.facebook.com/michcotamusic/

Upset The Rhythm presents…   HEKLA INGRID PLUM / YONI SILVER / ALEX WARD TRIO A LILY Monday 15 October Servant Jazz Quarters, 10A Bradbury Street, Dalston, N16 8JN 7.30pm | £8 | TICKETS   HEKLA is a Berlin-residing Icelander whose sparse, delicate, fractal music exists within these two worlds: dark and magical as Iceland’s permanight folklore; and as deeply sonic and intense as Berlin’s electronic scene. A long-term scholar of solo theremin, Hekla (shortened from her own name Hekla Magnúsdóttir) uses her instrument as an otherworldly and highly evocative Siren-call. A spectral, wailing, howling, lamenting yearning second-voice that underpins a soft vocal delivery, as if her studio had been haunted with a chorus of ghostly backing singers. Hekla’s debut album for solo theremin and voice ‘Á’ is out on September 14th through Phantom Limb Records (this show is the album launch). The album was written and self-recorded by Hekla in her home studio in Berlin around her son’s daycare schedule. Icelandic super-musician Mr Silla (a part-time múm member) guests on a number of tracks. Tallinn-based engineer Jose Diogo Neves - a stalwart of Icelandic and Portuguese music - mixed and mastered the record. While a handful of reference points share similar ground, Colleen’s interplay of voice and instrumentation; the richly immersive filmscore work of sadly passed fellow Icelander Jóhann Jóhannsson; “grandmother of theremin” Clara Rockmore’s close relationship with such a singular instrument; Julia Holter’s intelligent and classically-aligned songwriting - Hekla’s music still exists singularly. A one-off talent, emerging from no particular scene, ascribing to no particular rules. https://phantomlimblabel.bandcamp.com/album/- INGRID PLUM uses her voice with extended technique, improvisation, field recordings and electronics, to create layered soundscapes, spoken word and songs. Described by The Guardian as “gorgeously atmospheric vocal techniques woven around field recordings & electronics” she has performed and exhibited installation art internationally since 2002, creating work that combines sound art, contemporary classical and folk music. Incorporating her research into folk traditions with field recordings and studying directly with Meredith Monk her recent performances have been described as “succinct and nourishing... a luxuriant space between almost excessive precision and looser improvisation" by The Wire. http://www.ingridplum.com/ YONI SILVER is a bass-clarinetist and multi-instrumentalist whose activities include hyper-spectral adventures with Iancu Dumitrescu's Hyperion Ensemble; a bass clarinet and percussion duo with Steve Noble; a bass clarinet/violin and possessed vocals duo with Sharon Gal; Denis D’or with Grundik Kasyansky and Tom Wheatley; bass clarinet and drums duo with Crystabel Riley, and solo performances on amplified bass clarinet. He has appeared on labels such as Creative Sources, Confront Recordings, Wasted Capital, Chocolate Monk and Edition Modern. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VtgtBwE8QLM ALEX WARD is a composer, improviser, and performing musician, working primarily with clarinet and guitar. His involvement in freely improvised music dates back to 1986, when he met the guitarist Derek Bailey. He subsequently took part regularly in Bailey's Company events, and has gone on to become a major figure in British improvised music. His current work includes the avant-rock duo Dead Days Beyond Help in which he plays guitar, sings and co-writes the material; various groups which perform his compositions-for-improvisers including Forebrace, the Alex Ward Quintet/Sextet, and the Item series of ensembles; and improvising collaborations both regular and ad-hoc with musicians including Steve Noble, Dominic Lash, Kay Grant, Joe Morris and Weasel Walter. Besides his own groups and improvisational work, he also performs in ensembles including the Duck Baker Trio/Quartet, Thurston Moore’s recent multi-guitar projects Galaxies and New Noise Guitar Explorations, and Charles Bullen and Charles Hayward’s This Is Not This Heat. He brings a unique energy and inventiveness to all these projects, elevating them far above the ordinary and injecting them with a thrilling sense of danger and possibility. Much of his work is documented on the label Copepod, which he co-runs with Luke Barlow. https://alexward.bandcamp.com/ A LILY is James Vella, who is also a writer. Based in Brighton, UK, and bringing together influences as diverse as ambient drone, delicate indie-folk, pop songwriting, electronic music and modern classical, A Lily is a solo project with a far-reaching net. James has released a handful of A Lily records with Blank Editions, Kingfisher Bluez, Fierce Panda, Dynamophone Records and Sound in Silence among other labels. The son of a choral / operatic soprano and music theory lecturer, he grew up around music and saw his first record release as a teenager. Using the ‘A Lily’ name to encompass all of his solo music, his releases have covered broad stylistic ranges, from dark alt-pop to piano solos to mechanically-hearted electronica to abstract avant-garde. https://alily.bandcamp.com/

Upset The Rhythm presents…   THE SPACE LADY SPINNING COIN Tuesday 23 October Moth Club, Old Trades Hall, Valette St, Hackney Central, E9 6NU 7.30pm | £10 | TICKETS   THE SPACE LADY began her odyssey on the streets of San Francisco in the late 70s, playing versions of contemporary pop music an accordion and dressed flamboyantly, transmitting messages of peace and harmony. Following the theft of her accordion, The Space Lady invested in a then-new Casio keyboard, birthing an otherworldly new dimension to popular song that has captured the imaginations of the underground and its lead exponents ever since, with the likes of John Maus, Erol Alkan and Kutmah being devotees. Of her early street sets, only one recording was made, self-released originally on cassette and then transferred to a homemade CD. 'The Space Lady's Greatest Hits' released in 2014 through Night School features the best of these recordings - mostly covers but with some originals - pressed on vinyl for the first time and features archival photographs and liner notes from The Space Lady herself. 'Greatest Hits' contains The Space Lady's personal favourites; her haunting take on The Electric Prunes' 'I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night),' a frantic 'Ballroom Blitz' amidst other reconstructed pop music. Following on from this wonderful record, The Space Lady released a split LP in 2015 with the Burnt Ones on Castle Face records which included her spectral take on 'Across The Universe' and a brand new LP this year through Mississippi entitled 'On The Street Of Dreams'. https://soundcloud.com/dazedandconfused/sets/the-space-lady-greatest-hits SPINNING COIN are a fiercely independent rock group from Glasgow, something you could probably guess by listening to any of their songs. Their roots are all over the place but a simple love of playing together in their rehearsal space, and almost never turning down shows, has seen them coalesce a winning group sound in almost no time at all. Drummer Chris White is part of the Winning Sperm Party collective, who document of a world of shadowy Glasgow music running all the way from the Glasgow Music Collective to Fuzzkill Records today. Where Spinning Coin branch out from things is in their cascading melodicism topped with some amazing shredding. This connects into a slightly different Glasgow music scene more associated with Orange Juice, Teenage Fanclub, and of course The Pastels, who released their debut album through their Geographic Music imprint. Their music is beautifully rough-hewn guitar pop that takes in frustration, but also gracefulness and splendour, in equal measure. The fourteen songs on debut 'Permo' trace all kinds of terrain, though the overarching story might be that of a group looking for escapism, somehow and anyhow, in the midst of a social and cultural climate that's closing down possibilities for difference and community. https://soundcloud.com/spinning-coin

Thanks for reading, see you on Thursday! Upset The Rhythm

UPSET THE RHYTHM UPCOMING SHOWS

VIRGINIA WING TRASH KIT MICH COTA Thursday 11 October OSLO, 1a Amhurst Road, Hackney, London, E8 1LL 7.30pm | £8 | TICKETS   HEKLA INGRID PLUM / YONI SILVER / ALEX WARD TRIO A LILY Monday 15 October Servant Jazz Quarters, 10A Bradbury Street, Dalston, London, N16 8JN 7.30pm | £8 | TICKETS   THE SPACE LADY SPINNING COIN Tuesday 23 October Moth Club, Old Trades Hall, Valette St, Hackney Central, London, E9 6NU 7.30pm | £10 | TICKETS   EARTHEATER CUCINA POVERA RICHARD RIGGS Thursday 25 October The Courtyard Theatre, 40 Pitfield Street, Shoreditch, London, N1 6EU 8pm | £10 | TICKETS   JO PASSED SLUMB PARTY PET HATES Thursday 25 October The Victoria, 451 Queensbridge Rd, Dalston, London, E8 3AS 7.30pm | £7 | TICKETS   Tompkins Square Records night featuring… BRIGID MAE POWER DUCK BAKER GWENIFER RAYMOND Friday 26 October St John on Bethnal Green, 200 Cambridge Heath Rd, London, E2 9PA 7pm | £10 | TICKETS   GROUPER Monday 29 October Hackney Arts Centre (EartH), 13 Stoke Newington Road, London, N16 8BH EARLY SHOW : 7pm - 9pm SOLD OUT LATE SHOW : 9pm - 11pm ON SALE NOW! 7pm-9pm / 9pm-11pm | £16.50 | TICKETS   PAN AMERICAN Wednesday 7 November Redon, Railway Arches, 289 Cambridge Heath Rd, London, E2 9HA 7.30pm | £8 | TICKETS   SIR RICHARD BISHOP CIAN NUGENT  Thursday 8 November Bethnal Green Working Men’s Club, 44 Pollard Row, London, E2 6NB 7:30pm | £10 | TICKETS   MARY LATTIMORE Monday 19 November The Lexington, 96-98 Pentonville Rd, Angel, London, N1 9JB 7.30pm | £8 | TICKETS   HEN OGLEDD Friday 30 November The Courtyard Theatre, 40 Pitfield Street, Shoreditch, London, N1 6EU 7.30pm | £12 | TICKETS   ERIC CHENAUX Wednesday 5 December The Islington, 1 Tolpuddle Street, Angel, London, N1 0XT 7.30pm | £10 | TICKETS   KRISTIN HERSH With ROB AHLERS (drums) & FRED ABONG (bass) Sunday 10 March & Tuesday 12 March Bush Hall, 310 Uxbridge Rd, Shepherd's Bush, London, W12 7LJ 7.30pm | £25 | TICKETS MARCH 10 /  TICKETS MARCH 12

Eric Chenaux comes back to London this December!

Extremely over the wild moon that Eric Chenaux is coming back to play London this December!

Upset The Rhythm presents…

ERIC CHENAUX
Wednesday 5 December
The Islington, 1 Tolpuddle Street, Angel, London, N1 0XT
7.30pm | £10 | https://www.wegottickets.com/event/451542

ERIC CHENAUX makes conceptual music that’s not meant to sound conceptual. He operates among various ‘traditions’ but perhaps most broadly, Chenaux’s records grapple with the relationship between improvisation and structure in very particular, unique, idiosyncratic ways – and quite without irony or cynicism, through love. Because fundamentally, Chenaux writes love songs, which he sings in a voice honeyed and clear, while his guitar gently bends, frazzes, chortles, diverges and decomposes. This juxtaposition of his mellow, dexterous crooning and his highly experimental (and equally dexterous) guitar explorations, explodes even unconventional notions of singing and accompaniment, of tonal and timbral interplay between guitar and voice.

As a solo artist, Chenaux’s improvisation methods are in certain literal ways solipsistic: as a singer-songwriter, he plays his guitar around and against his voice, challenging easy notions of harmony/harmoniousness, improvising ‘with himself’ in pursuit of surprising himself (and his listeners) as he unfurls ribbons of voice and instrument often to the point of seeming independence, all the better to capture­­ – and be captured by – unforeseen, intimate moments of interdependence: a definition of freedom, as a profoundly intentional state of openness, presence and play. Even within avant-garde currents of folk and jazz balladry, Eric Chenaux feels like an outlier. Yet his music remains wonderfully warm, generous and fundamentally accessible in spite of its irrefutable iconoclasm. While the constitutive elements of Chenaux’s solo work in recent years might suggest some underlying devotion to asceticism, the opposite is much more true: his musical reveries resist, critique and counteract austerity (in all its forms) in a joyful abandonment to the improvised space where playfulness and light-heartedness are taken seriously, and where love is invoked and expressed, without reductive or facile sentimentalism, in a full, nuanced, clear-eyed suspension/rejection of the cynical life.

Slowly Paradise (on Constellation Records) is Eric Chenaux’s most recent solo record – a lovely collection of mostly long songs guided by soothing, buttery singing and bent, fried fretwork. It is arguably Chenaux’s most assured and essential solo work, expanding upon the critical acclaim his previous releases Guitar & Voice and Skullsplitter have rightly garnered.
http://cstrecords.com/eric-chenaux/



“Ornette Coleman might call it harmolodic. Chenaux might call it an amazing background. His strings chime with all those thoughts at once. I adore the way he teases out a melody, never beginning a phrase so much as joining one already in progress. The sound quivers and multiplies such that I picture his strings fraying and sprouting into more strings, weeds, nests, marshes, frogs’ tongues, canceled coins, nickel pipes, drainage systems, catacombs, coral reefs…I could pick Chenaux’s guitar out of a lineup within a few woozy notes, because it’s no longer confined to the orthodox pluck, squawk and scrape of [Derek] Bailey-influenced guitar improv; instead it has absorbed Bailey’s open field of possibility into a love of song. And the songs are strong enough to take it.” – Carl Wilson, Said The Gramaphone

“In the field of avant guitar wrangling, Chenaux’s style is genuinely distinctive…His latest is an(other) effortlessly lovely solo set that recalls John Martyn, Marc Ribot, Arthur Russell and the Hardanger fiddle tradition, as it weaves trippily between improve jazz, electronica, folk-drone and lounge balladry” – Uncut

“Chenaux’s voice expands haunting, jazz-tuned melodies from the inside. His voice is weightless, haunting, alighting on words and phrases without putting pressure on them, then skittering up an octave or so for spectral climaxes.” – Dusted Magazine

“Eric Chenaux’s delicate and deft approach creates utterly beautiful and beguiling songs. Few musicians, experimental or otherwise come close” – Music OMH

“He can seamlessly veer from fragile and lilting to wonderfully rich and expressive in the space of a single song” – The Skinny

Upcoming London shows for Rose McDowall, Virginia Wing and Hekla!

Morning everyone!   Firstly, huge thanks to all of you who came out to see Terry and Wolf Eyes (three times) last week, what a rare treat! You all helped make those events happen with your attendance, it’s always appreciated, go you!   Since then, we’ve been booking new shows left, right and centre, when will we ever learn to take things easy? Check out our upcoming live programme at the end of this message as it contains newly listed concerts for Sir Richard Bishop, Pan American (kranky) and two special events with Kristin Hersh next March at Bush Hall as part of her ‘Live & Loud’ tour with extra bass and drums, electrifying stuff!

In terms of London shows of the more imminent nature, we have three glinting tantalizingly on the horizon during the next two weeks. Our first sees us decamp Monday evening to St Pancras Church for an atmospheric set from the incredible Rose McDowall (of Strawberry Switchblade, C93 and of course Sorrow, whose material this set takes its lead from). Rose is always a mesmerizing performer and on these hallowed grounds it’ll make for a very special event indeed, happy to have Jetstream Pony supplying support duties on this one too.   Limited tickets left for this show now, so well worth buying some in advance.

As we stride into October (where’s this year vanished to?) on Thursday the 11th, we crop up again at OSLO in Hackney for an evening of inventive psych pop, galloping polyrhythmic ecstasy and unapologetic sincerity courtesy of Virginia Wing, Trash Kit and Mich Cota, now that’s a gold-plated lineup! Counting the days here.   A few days later on October 15th we’re lucky enough to have Hekla, Ingrid Plum / Alex Ward / Yoni Silver and A Lily all performing at Servant Jazz Quarters. Acting as the album release for Berlin-residing Icelander Hekla’s debut album of theremin and vocal otherworlds, this show is going to explore new rooms of ambient sound and exploratory improvisation. Full details on all three of these events can be studied below, along with our listings for the rest of the year too.

Here’s a little more required reading for your weekend, let us direct you to this tour de force of an interview with Guttersnipe, up on The Quietus by Kevin McCaighy.   It’s really something, quite the trip into their world of incendiary noise and bristling ideas, dig deep!

Upset The Rhythm presents…   ROSE MCDOWALL JETSTREAM PONY Monday 1 October St Pancras Old Church, Pancras Road, King's Cross, NW1 1UL 7.30pm | £10 | TICKETS   ROSE MCDOWALL’s trajectory from punk provocateur to chart-subverting pop star to underground neo-folk musician has been one peppered with unknowns and adventure. McDowall began her career in her hometown of Glasgow, operating within the nascent punk scene with her first group The Poems. After a meteoric rise to pop stardom with Strawberry Switchblade (along with friend Jill Bryson), McDowall submerged herself in the post-industrial landscape, becoming a member of Current 93 during their purple patch and a guest on records by artists as diverse as Psychic TV, Felt, Coil and Nurse with Wound, McDowall's status as the unofficial queen and muse of the underground is well deserved. After the recording of several demos which resulted in the 'Cut With The Cake Knife' album (Night School/Sacred Bones, 2015), McDowall formed Sorrow to further explore her interest in psychedelic, folk music. Considerably darker in tone than Strawberry Switchblade, but still resplendent in McDowall's angelic, heartfelt vocal, 'Under the Yew Possessed' is a cult album that belies a classic pop song writing sensibility. Issued in a limited gold vinyl edition for Record Store Day 2018, 'Under the Yew Possessed' enjoys a full Night School reissue later this summer, followed swiftly by 'Gem'( in October) a new album of recordings with Canadian musician Shawn Pinchbeck. This Oct 1st concert will be a rare performance from Rose with her new live band, comprising of several members of Scotland's ever burgeoning music scene featuring Russel Burn ex of Fire Engines/WIN/Spectorbullets and Jeremy Thoms ex-Revillos/Strawberry Tarts and currently The Cathode Ray amongst them. https://rosemcdowall.bandcamp.com/ JETSTREAM PONY write and perform shambling post punk and pulsing indie pop, featuring former Wedding Present drummer Shaun Charman (who featured on the band’s early classic albums George Best and Tommy)  on guitar, with vocals by Beth Arzy of Trembling Blue Stars and former Sarah Records artistes, Aberdeen. The band’s line-up is completed by Kerry Boettcher on bass and Sarah Boyle on drums. Kerry and Shaun were previously in the John Peel-supported Turbocat, during the late ’90s. Shaun and Beth have also previously been in Fireworks. Check out their recent 7” on German label Kleine Untergrun Schallplatten. https://jetstreampony.bandcamp.com/

Upset The Rhythm presents…   VIRGINIA WING TRASH KIT MICH COTA Thursday 11 October OSLO, 1a Amhurst Road, Hackney, London, E8 1LL 7.30pm | £8 | TICKETS   VIRGINIA WING are an inventive psych-pop duo based in Manchester, who take their name from Grace Slick's mother. Consisting of Alice Merida Richards (Vocals, Synths, Organ) and Samuel Pillay (Synths, guitar, noises, bass), their music is a sprawling amalgamation of experimental pop songs with texture, depth and nuance; daring, progressive and forever bold. After two previous stunning albums, Virginia Wing return on June 8th with renewed strength, optimism and clarity for their new album 'Ecstatic Arrow' (Fire Records). 'Ecstatic Arrow' borrows from the heterogeneous terrain of The Flying Lizard's 'Fourth Wall', the exuberant technology assisted pop of Yellow Magic Orchestra and the playful sophistication of Lizzy Mercier Descloux, arriving at the evergreen intersection of pop music and conceptual art. The voice of Alice Merida Richards is more compelling and expressive than ever. The glacial deadpan of previous records has given way to a more candid, self-possessed delivery, showing an appreciation for the humour and tragedy innate in the downtown Arcadia of Laurie Anderson, Robert Ashley or even Lynn Goldsmith's Will Powers. It's with this voice that Richards outlines a simple ideality that fortifies the entirety of the album - inequality pervades, destructive behaviours are inherited and each subsequent generation has to reconcile the debts of its precursor - yet a space exists within ourselves and each other that houses a fact we must be reminded of - we have the ability to choose. https://virginiawingmusic.bandcamp.com/ TRASH KIT are Rachel Aggs, Rachel Horwood and Gill Partington. They have a wild feel for melody, writing songs that pull at the reins with a spontaneous charm. Their music is primal yet thoughtful, affirming yet sincere, drawing on the potential of post-punk and the naturalism of an internal folk music. Although Trash Kit have their forebears in bands like X-Ray Spex, The Ex and The Raincoats, their sound is very much their own take on facing forwards. Galloping polyrhythms, overlapping sung-spoke lyrics and entwining guitars are all drawn together into a taut unity, sounding wilfully alive. Both Rachels tangle their vocals with each other whilst expressive drumbeats and restless guitar flurries provide the rhythmic drive. Trash Kit's music is full of pauses, woven silence and punctuation too, and this is where the resonant bass lines find a perfect home. With two albums under their belt for Upset The Rhythm, Trash Kit are currently adding the finishing touches to their incredible third record. https://www.facebook.com/TRASH-KIT-329766302806/ MICH COTA’s identity has always been ingrained with the language of sound. As a two-spirit woman, raised by a native father and a white mother in Southern Ontario, Cota began composing small melodies on the piano from the age of three to create her own sacred space in an intensely religious home. Inspired by her countryside surroundings, she would ingrain herself in nature, imagining herself in a place free of theology and restraint. This is something Cota has carried with her throughout her creative existence. Her music is a way of navigating past traumas while exploring her queer experience, with open, unapologetic sincerity. It's through her artistic expression that she relates to others, to build collective understanding and empathy, with the intention to heal and to challenge normative ways of being. https://www.facebook.com/michcotamusic/

Upset The Rhythm presents…   HEKLA INGRID PLUM / YONI SILVER / ALEX WARD TRIO A LILY Monday 15 October Servant Jazz Quarters, 10A Bradbury Street, Dalston, N16 8JN 7.30pm | £8 | TICKETS   HEKLA is a Berlin-residing Icelander whose sparse, delicate, fractal music exists within these two worlds: dark and magical as Iceland’s permanight folklore; and as deeply sonic and intense as Berlin’s electronic scene. A long-term scholar of solo theremin, Hekla (shortened from her own name Hekla Magnúsdóttir) uses her instrument as an otherworldly and highly evocative Siren-call. A spectral, wailing, howling, lamenting yearning second-voice that underpins a soft vocal delivery, as if her studio had been haunted with a chorus of ghostly backing singers. Hekla’s debut album for solo theremin and voice ‘Á’ is out on September 14th through Phantom Limb Records (this show is the album launch). The album was written and self-recorded by Hekla in her home studio in Berlin around her son’s daycare schedule. Icelandic super-musician Mr Silla (a part-time múm member) guests on a number of tracks. Tallinn-based engineer Jose Diogo Neves - a stalwart of Icelandic and Portuguese music - mixed and mastered the record. While a handful of reference points share similar ground, Colleen’s interplay of voice and instrumentation; the richly immersive filmscore work of sadly passed fellow Icelander Jóhann Jóhannsson; “grandmother of theremin” Clara Rockmore’s close relationship with such a singular instrument; Julia Holter’s intelligent and classically-aligned songwriting - Hekla’s music still exists singularly. A one-off talent, emerging from no particular scene, ascribing to no particular rules. https://phantomlimblabel.bandcamp.com/album/- INGRID PLUM uses her voice with extended technique, improvisation, field recordings and electronics, to create layered soundscapes, spoken word and songs. Described by The Guardian as “gorgeously atmospheric vocal techniques woven around field recordings & electronics” she has performed and exhibited installation art internationally since 2002, creating work that combines sound art, contemporary classical and folk music. Incorporating her research into folk traditions with field recordings and studying directly with Meredith Monk her recent performances have been described as “succinct and nourishing... a luxuriant space between almost excessive precision and looser improvisation" by The Wire. http://www.ingridplum.com/ YONI SILVER is a bass-clarinetist and multi-instrumentalist whose activities include hyper-spectral adventures with Iancu Dumitrescu's Hyperion Ensemble; a bass clarinet and percussion duo with Steve Noble; a bass clarinet/violin and possessed vocals duo with Sharon Gal; Denis D’or with Grundik Kasyansky and Tom Wheatley; bass clarinet and drums duo with Crystabel Riley, and solo performances on amplified bass clarinet. He has appeared on labels such as Creative Sources, Confront Recordings, Wasted Capital, Chocolate Monk and Edition Modern. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VtgtBwE8QLM ALEX WARD is a composer, improviser, and performing musician, working primarily with clarinet and guitar. His involvement in freely improvised music dates back to 1986, when he met the guitarist Derek Bailey. He subsequently took part regularly in Bailey's Company events, and has gone on to become a major figure in British improvised music. His current work includes the avant-rock duo Dead Days Beyond Help in which he plays guitar, sings and co-writes the material; various groups which perform his compositions-for-improvisers including Forebrace, the Alex Ward Quintet/Sextet, and the Item series of ensembles; and improvising collaborations both regular and ad-hoc with musicians including Steve Noble, Dominic Lash, Kay Grant, Joe Morris and Weasel Walter. Besides his own groups and improvisational work, he also performs in ensembles including the Duck Baker Trio/Quartet, Thurston Moore’s recent multi-guitar projects Galaxies and New Noise Guitar Explorations, and Charles Bullen and Charles Hayward’s This Is Not This Heat. He brings a unique energy and inventiveness to all these projects, elevating them far above the ordinary and injecting them with a thrilling sense of danger and possibility. Much of his work is documented on the label Copepod, which he co-runs with Luke Barlow. https://alexward.bandcamp.com/ A LILY is James Vella, who is also a writer. Based in Brighton, UK, and bringing together influences as diverse as ambient drone, delicate indie-folk, pop songwriting, electronic music and modern classical, A Lily is a solo project with a far-reaching net. James has released a handful of A Lily records with Blank Editions, Kingfisher Bluez, Fierce Panda, Dynamophone Records and Sound in Silence among other labels. The son of a choral / operatic soprano and music theory lecturer, he grew up around music and saw his first record release as a teenager. Using the ‘A Lily’ name to encompass all of his solo music, his releases have covered broad stylistic ranges, from dark alt-pop to piano solos to mechanically-hearted electronica to abstract avant-garde. https://alily.bandcamp.com/

Have a wonderful weekend, thanks for all your time and consideration, See you on Monday at Rose McDowall! Upset The Rhythm

UPSET THE RHYTHM UPCOMING SHOWS

ROSE MCDOWALL JETSTREAM PONY Monday 1st October St Pancras Old Church, Pancras Road, King's Cross, London, NW1 1UL 7.30pm | £10 | TICKETS   VIRGINIA WING TRASH KIT MICH COTA Thursday 11 October OSLO, 1a Amhurst Road, Hackney, London, E8 1LL 7.30pm | £8 | TICKETS   HEKLA INGRID PLUM / YONI SILVER / ALEX WARD TRIO A LILY Monday 15 October Servant Jazz Quarters, 10A Bradbury Street, Dalston, London, N16 8JN 7.30pm | £8 | TICKETS   THE SPACE LADY SPINNING COIN Tuesday 23 October Moth Club, Old Trades Hall, Valette St, Hackney Central, London, E9 6NU 7.30pm | £10 | TICKETS   EARTHEATER CUCINA POVERA RICHARD RIGGS Thursday 25 October The Courtyard Theatre, 40 Pitfield Street, Shoreditch, London, N1 6EU 8pm | £10 | TICKETS   JO PASSED SLUMB PARTY PET HATES Thursday 25 October The Victoria, 451 Queensbridge Rd, Dalston, London, E8 3AS 7.30pm | £7 | TICKETS   Tompkins Square Records night featuring… BRIGID MAE POWER DUCK BAKER GWENIFER RAYMOND Friday 26 October St John on Bethnal Green, 200 Cambridge Heath Rd, London, E2 9PA 7pm | £10 | TICKETS   GROUPER Monday 29 October Hackney Arts Centre (EartH), 13 Stoke Newington Road, London, N16 8BH EARLY SHOW : 7pm - 9pm SOLD OUT LATE SHOW : 9pm - 11pm ON SALE NOW! 7pm-9pm / 9pm-11pm | £16.50 | TICKETS   PAN AMERICAN Wednesday 7 November Redon, Railway Arches, 289 Cambridge Heath Rd, London, E2 9HA 7.30pm | £8 | TICKETS   SIR RICHARD BISHOP Thursday 8 November Bethnal Green Working Men’s Club, 44 Pollard Row, London, E2 6NB 7:30pm | £10 | TICKETS   MARY LATTIMORE Monday 19 November The Lexington, 96-98 Pentonville Rd, Angel, London, N1 9JB 7.30pm | £8 | TICKETS   HEN OGLEDD Friday 30 November The Courtyard Theatre, 40 Pitfield Street, Shoreditch, London, N1 6EU 7.30pm | £12 | TICKETS   KRISTIN HERSH With ROB AHLERS (drums) & FRED ABONG (bass) Sunday 10 March & Tuesday 12 March Bush Hall, 310 Uxbridge Rd, Shepherd's Bush, London, W12 7LJ 7.30pm | £25 | TICKETS MARCH 10 /  TICKETS MARCH 12

Live and loud! Kristin Hersh & live band playing twice in March!

Upset The Rhythm presents…

KRISTIN HERSH
With ROB AHLERS (drums) & FRED ABONG (bass)
Sunday 10 March & Tuesday 12 March
Bush Hall, 310 Uxbridge Rd, Shepherd's Bush, London, W12 7LJ
7.30pm | £25 |  https://www.seetickets.com/event/kristin-hersh/bush-hall/1271890
https://www.seetickets.com/event/kristin-hersh/bush-hall/1271894

KRISTIN HERSH, most recognised as the front person for the influential art-punk band Throwing Muses and power trio 50FOOTWAVE, will be touring the UK in Spring 2019 with Rob Ahlers (50 Foot Wave) on drums and Fred Abong (Throwing Muses, Belly) on bass. Throwing Muses first gained traction in the early '80s, playing with similarly singular artists, such as The Pixies and Dinosaur Jr. They continue to release ground-breaking music, most recently with 2013's double CD masterpiece 'Purgatory/Paradise'. Kristin's solo career spun off in 1994 with the release of 'Hips and Makers', a widely acclaimed album that included 'Your Ghost', a duet with R.E.M.'s Michael Stipe. Since then, Kristin has released a steady stream of distinctly individual solo albums, including 2010's 'Crooked', released as her first in the inventive book/CD format for which she is now known.



2016's 'Wyatt at the Coyote Palace', on which Kristin played all of the instruments, received rave reviews; an explosive defined by blistering guitars, powerful drumming and her signature visceral vocal technique. Her poignant true stories bring the listener into what the BBC calls Hersh's "dark and dizzy world". In 2004, Kristin formed the noise rock power trio 50FOOTWAVE, releasing a series of frighteningly intense mini-albums, all available for download free of charge. Their most recent 'Bath White' EP was described as "a series of loud explosions, of velvet like dreams all intermingled at the same time. Bath White takes no prisoners." Kristin's writing career has flourished with the highly acclaimed 'Paradoxical Undressing' (released as 'Rat Girl' in the USA) and the award winning 'Don't Suck, Don't Die', a personal account of her long friendship with the late Vic Chesnutt, as well as the enchanting books which now accompany each of her record releases. Kristin’s tenth studio album, ‘Possible Dust Clouds’ (out this October on Fire Records) is a highly personalised sociopathic gem delivered as a futuristic rewriting of how music works, a melodious breeze with a tail wind of venomous din. Enveloping the juxtaposition of the concept of ‘dark sunshine’, a brooding solo record created with friends to expand her off-kilter sonic vision; a squally, squeaky mix of discordant beauty. ‘Possible Dust Clouds’ is a glorious return to form for one of alternative rock’s true innovators.
https://www.kristinhersh.com/

THE WORLD and their small WORLD tour!

THE WORLD are about to head out on tour, lucky USA!

 30/09 - Berkley, CA @ Nick's Karaoke 
 02/10 - Chicago, IL @ 2040 
 03/10 - Saint Louis, MO @ RKDE 
 04/10 - Bloomington, IN @ Blockhouse 
 06/10 - Louisville, KY @ Cropped Out Fest (in the Alley - 6pm)

x

PAN AMERICAN in LONDON!

We've always wanted to work with Mark Nelson on a show and now we are! Nov 7th - Pan American at Redon!

Upset The Rhythm presents…

PAN AMERICAN

Wednesday 7 November

Redon, Railway Arches, 289 Cambridge Heath Rd, London, E2 9HA

7.30pm  | £8 | http://www.wegottickets.com/event/451432

During the summer of 1997, Mark Nelson started recording a full length album for kranky at home and at Sound of Music Studios in Richmond, Virginia. Mark Nelson had been playing guitar and singing in Labradford, but wanted to explore the possibilities of sampling and computer technology as well as his interests in dub and techno. The self-titled, debut Pan American album came out on kranky in early 1998.

Nelson continued to work on Pan American material as he worked with Labradford, learning to play pedal steel guitar, releasing singles on European labels and getting some studio time in with engineer Casey Rice. Rob Mazurek from Chicago Underground Trio and Alan Sparhawk and Mimi Parker of Low contributed cornet and vocals, respectively. The resulting album, 360 Business / 360 Bypass, was released by kranky in North America (and Blast First in Europe) in early 2000.

More singles and compilation tracks followed, along with the odd live performance. Nelson’s placement behind a synthesizer and mixing desk belied the improvisational nature of the live mix. Between sternum-rattling bass rhythms and Nelson’s willingness to challenge an audience of with outbursts of static, Pan American shows were more than the usual knob-twiddling and smooth noodle maps.

The third record was entitled The River Made No Sound and was released by kranky in North American and Vertical Form in Europe in April 2002. Mark Nelson told Eyemagazine in October 2002 that “When I started I really had it in mind to make a more rhythmic record influenced by house music. I did the whole thing at home by myself, so I guess by the end my natural inclination towards ambience and peaceful textures won out.” Stripped back compared to previous albums, The River Made No Sound, traded dub undertow for percussive points, field recordings and an ominous hum.

Quiet City (Kranky 2004) combines the computer-centric approach of The River Made No Sound with the organic instrumentation that marked Nelson’s work in Labradford and the first two Pan American albums. Three of the eight tracks were recorded with Charles Kim (Sinister Luck Ensemble) and feature upright bass, drums, trumpet and flugelhorn. Nelson even sings a bit. The rippling electronics and muffled beats of the first three Pan American albums are still there; distended into elegiac, resonant, wavering, and ambient song craft. The CD edition of Quiet City comes with a DVD that contains a video essay shot and edited by Mark Nelson and Chicago visual artist Annie Feldmeier.

In 2011, Mark Nelson finally returns with a new album under the Pan American moniker – and it’s another triumph of sublime understatement. “For Waiting, For Chasing” (on MOSZ) is underpinned by delicately caressed and manipulated Flugelhorns, Tibetan Singing Bowls and Chinese Cymbals, processed, weaved and loved into a throbbing mass of neon loveliness. Opening ‘Love Song’ unfolds with a gentle cacophony of whirrs – like crickets trapped in a jar – juxtaposed with the most ethereal layers of ambience tripping over each other to create a cloud of harmony; this is absolutely classic Pan American territory. Nelson never confines his music to simple ambience, moulding in noisier elements which work as a counterpoint to the warm tones of the Tibetan Singing Bowls and synthesized whisps – a conceit which manages to keep his work ever-contemporary when so many of his past peers have been stuck in an endless loop of repetition. A work of calming restraint, it’s really impossible to fault this musician and his ability, with this album, to craft another perfectly-formed microcosm of bliss. Essential purchase.

With Cloud Room, Glass Room (Kranky 2013) Pan American quietly slip back into our consciousness as a band proper, now adding the estimable talents of Steven Hess (Cleared/Haptic) and Nelson’s former Labradford bandmate, Robert Donne to the project. While Nelson assuredly handles all production, the live feel is definitely more prominent, folding in the patter of Hess’s percussion and Bobby Donne’s languid bass at the centre of seven beautifully diffuse soundscapes bordering on the frontier lands of post-rock, dub techno and ambient electronica, yet never clearly falling within any one sector. Every element is given ample room to breathe thanks to Nelson’s typically intricate production render, allowing Hess’s hi-hats and cymbal strokes to really shimmer and Donne’s bass to ring out wide and sag purposefully low, but you’re never really focussed on either, the emphasis is on the whole ecology of sound and the way it’s all in fragile and comfortingly sublime equilibrium; a cats cradle of ambient lushness intended to suspend the listener, pensile in its womb-like amniotic fluidity.

In these days Nelson is working on his new project Anjou (2 albums on Kranky) and the next Pan American album.

http://www.kranky.net/artists/panamerican.html

SIR RICHARD BISHOP - Coming to London this November 8th!

Upset The Rhythm presents…

SIR RICHARD BISHOP
Thursday 8 November
Bethnal Green Working Men’s Club, 44 Pollard Row, London, E2 6NB
7:30pm | £10 | http://www.wegottickets.com/event/450811

SIR RICHARD BISHOP is an experimental guitarist whose improvisations and compositions often reflect the shadow worlds of India, the Middle East, North Africa, and other points along the Gypsy trail. Richard is perhaps best known as a founding member (along with brother Alan Bishop) of experimental ethnic-improv pioneers and underground tricksters Sun City Girls, who for nearly 30 years have produced an extensive discography of over 50 full length albums, 20 one-hour cassettes and a dozen 7” records. Sun City Girls formed in 1981 after the Bishop brothers' stint in the group Paris 1942 which also featured J. Akkari and former Velvet Underground drummer Moe Tucker.

Richard's first solo record, Salvador Kali, was released by John Fahey's esteemed Revenant label in 1998 under the moniker Sir Richard Bishop (the name stuck). 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 release consists of nine extemporaneous and free-flowing pieces for solo acoustic guitar. In 2005, Bishop began performing relentlessly as a solo artist, playing throughout Europe, Australia, and the United States. He has not stopped since. 2007 saw the album Polytheistic Fragments released on the Drag City Label. It includes works for acoustic, electric and lapsteel guitar, plus two piano compositions. Next up was The Freak of Araby (Drag City, 2009). In May of 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, Bjork, etc). Richard teamed up with fellow guitarist Bill Orcutt in 2014 for the excellent Road Stories album on Unrock, whilst Drag City again released his most recent solo record, ’Tangier Sessions’. This album sees Bishop’s music driven by clever stylistic juxtapositions and attractive melodicism, showcasing his love of Andulsian flamenco guitar style, infusing it with gestures from across Morocco's borders.

Richard was also a co-founder of the Sublime Frequencies label (with Alan Bishop and Hisham Mayet). The label, whose mission is dedicated to acquiring and releasing obscure sights and sounds from Africa, India, S.E. Asia and beyond, began in 2003 and currently has over 110 releases to its credit.

http://www.sirrichardbishop.net/