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SIR RICHARD BISHOP

Sir Richard Bishop

Oneiric Formulary

    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 transmuted for our mortal ears’ enjoyment. The last couple of Sir Richard Bishop releases on Drag City were genre exercises of sorts — The Freak of Araby explored the musical legacy of late Egyptian guitarist Omar Khorshid while Tangier Sessions explored the sound of an obscure 19th century guitar that Rick had acquired from a mysterious Swiss luthier.

    The title Oneiric Formulary, may sit contrarily on the tongue — but we may refer to it as representing “a collection of dream states” — which means we like it! With such a lofty goal in mind and at his fingertips, Sir Rick returns to the approach of his DC debut, Polytheistic Fragments — a different sound, a different instrument, for nearly every track, drawing from the music of all nations, including and especially that infamous republic with only one person on the census roll (initials SRB). It’s got mad variety, the kind you don’t see much of anymore — an Ed Sullivan kind of evening out, with some spinning plates, dancing mice, and of course, an appearance from Zippy the Chimp.

    What it means is that when you drop the needle/raise the laser/press the head to tape/or do whatever happens when you stream it, you’ve got sounds that don’t sound at first like guitars — because they’re not! Then you’ve got sounds that sound initially like guitars — because they are! Sir Richard found joy in not only finding unlikely sounds, but also writing a fake jingle, soundtracking an unreleased film, reflecting on Southern origins, going concrète (Beatles-style!), using computers (Sir Rick, no!), and accidentally juxtaposing Frippian electric guitar drone against the grit of ol’ school acoustic guitar while thinking of sci-fi, as well as revisiting (t)rusty old forms such as Americana, classical, gypsy and raga. It’s all trotted out to phantasmic effect, as it brings to us with the freshness, the roar of the old crowd as they see, smell and hear the greatest show on earth. What a night! Thank you, Sir Richard Bishop.

    TRACK LISTING

    Call To Order
    Celerity
    Mit’s Linctus Codeine Co.
    Renaissance Nod
    Graveyard Wanderers
    Dust Devils
    Enville
    Black Sara
    The Coming Of The Rats
    Vellum

    Sir Richard Bishop

    The Freak Of Araby

      Sir Richard Bishop presents an album featuring hand drums, percussion, bass, drums, electric guitars and a heavy dose of Moroccan chanters, all of it captured with depth, detail and sympathy for the eternal enigma by engineer Scott Colburn. After recording a cover of "Ka'an Azzaman", written by Elias Rahbani, one of Lebanon's finest songwriters, something dawned on Sir Richard. Half-Lebanese by birth, he found himself suddenly possessed to really dig into Middle Eastern sounds. A pair of original melodies not fully developed at a prior recording session had the Arabic inspiration, so these were reattacked and finished in short order. Soon, Sir Richard's head was flooded with some of the classic sounds spun for him by his grandfather back in his younger days, like Farid Al-Atrache, Oum Kalthoum and Fairuz, along with other personal favourites, such as the guitarists Omar Khorshid and Mike Hegazi. In addition to the studio improvisation "Taqasim For Omar", the whole of "The Freak Of Araby" is dedicated to these inspiring players. In addition to his soul-stirring electric guitar playing, Sir Richard grabbed a couple of Moroccan chanters and blew the house down on "Blood-Stained Sands", providing an epic finish to this journey to the centre of one-half of the family tree.


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