Improvika

improvika

Track Listings

1. Provenance Unknown

2. Gnostic Gem

3. Rudra's Feast

4. Cryptonymus

5. Jaisalmer

6. Mystic Minor 23

7. Tripurasundari

8. Rose Secretions

9. Skull of Sidon

Editorial Reviews
Inkblot
"...Bishop's compositions...possess a singular grace that deserves to be heard far beyond the confines of underground rock."

Product Description
By trade, Sir Richard Bishop is a dealer of rare occult books and fine paper ephemera. However, in the musical cosmos, he has occasion to travel the smoke-filled carnie circuit as 1/3 of the Sun City Girls medicine show. In the twilight hours of a shadow world sensed only by few, Bishop is a dazzling unaccompanied guitarist. On Improvika, he rides a very tall horse through a surrealist's cowboy set that's one part bruit Peckinpah muscularity and two parts illuminated Jodorowskian symbolism…a very strange place, indeed. Armed only with a single steel-string wooden guitar, bare-knuckled Bishop fends off the horrors & dangers of the night with ease as he spits out glorious white robed arabesques, Django-inspired gypsy arcs and Latin terracotta flourishes like so many spinning tumbleweeds in a one horse town that is his alone. Improvika is Bishop's follow-up to his part on Locust's celebrated Wooden Guitar collection, and his second full-length release after his debut on John Fahey's Revenant label.

Improvika,Sir Richard Bishop,Locust,Finger-Picked Guitar,Pop,Progressive Folk,Rock,Rock/Pop,World Fusion

Improvika

Average customer rating:

How often does a bad review cause you to seek out an album? Here's one!
Zero Stars would be the actual score
Tha Real Shiznik Y'all

Improvika
Sir Richard Bishop
Manufacturer: Locust
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

General | Alternative Rock | Styles | Music

General | Folk | Styles | Music

General | International | Styles | Music

General | Rock | Styles | Music

Pop Rock | Pop | Styles | Music
Similar Items:

Salvador Kali: The Sun City Girls Solo Editions
O True Believers
Kensington Blues
Raag Manifestos
Venus in Cancer

ASIN: B0002QO4CW
Release Date: 2004-10-05

Tracks:

Provenance Unknown
Gnostic Gem
Rudra's Feast
Cryptonymus
Jaisalmer
Mystic Minor 23
Tripurasundari
Rose Secretions
Skull of Sidon

Album Description

By trade, Sir Richard Bishop is a dealer of rare occult books and fine paper ephemera. However, in the musical cosmos, he has occasion to travel the smoke-filled carnie circuit as 1/3 of the Sun City Girls medicine show. In the twilight hours of a shadow world sensed only by few, Bishop is a dazzling unaccompanied guitarist. On Improvika, he rides a very tall horse through a surrealist's cowboy set that's one part bruit Peckinpah muscularity and two parts illuminated Jodorowskian symbolism…a very strange place, indeed. Armed only with a single steel-string wooden guitar, bare-knuckled Bishop fends off the horrors & dangers of the night with ease as he spits out glorious white robed arabesques, Django-inspired gypsy arcs and Latin terracotta flourishes like so many spinning tumbleweeds in a one horse town that is his alone. Improvika is Bishop's follow-up to his part on Locust's celebrated Wooden Guitar collection, and his second full-length release after his debut on John Fahey's Revenant label.

Customer Reviews:

How often does a bad review cause you to seek out an album? Here's one!.......2007-06-21

The negative one star review this album received from Laszlo Nanasi was enough to make me return to my copy of this CD for a better listen. For some reason I remembered it as being a bit more experimental than SRB's first. Given Rick's 25+ year history/mystery with avant/punk/outside music legends Sun City Girls, such would not be a surprise. What I was astonished by was the depth and skill on display on Improvika. While Laszlo`s list of guitarists in his collection are all masters of the art , I was more intrigued by who was missing; John Fahey, Peter Lang, Robbie Basho, Leo Kottke, (i.e. the entire Takoma/American Primitive stable), Suni McGrath, Sandy Bull, etc. I doubt either not liking, or not having knowledge about or understanding of this heritage would give one the facility needed to appreciate SRB's playing. Why, the reviewer didn't even mention Ravi Shankar. Ravi Shankar?!? Well, yes! Raga structure is evident in several of the pieces here. Long, meditative openings build in intensity toward energetic, highly charged sections of quickly strummed rhythm and fingering virtuosity. I suppose this music owes its largest debt to Robbie Basho's work; however SRB's playing seems more assured, more focused. I guess the first time I ever heard this mixture of American acoustic guitar with Indian music was on Black Mountain Side from Led Zeppelin's first album (of all places!) and I've held a real fondness for this style ever since. All of this is further entwined with influences from Spain, the Middle East and a healthy dose of Django Reinhart, another master missing from Laszlo`s list. For shame! In any event, the world of solo steel string acoustic guitar players is certainly not overpopulated these days. I think we'll find ourselves fortunate to have people like SRB helping to fill that void.

Zero Stars would be the actual score.......2006-10-07

Beign a fan of acoustic or electro acoustic guitars made me buy this album. I have a good collection of CD's by such guitar greats as Steve Hackett, Anthony Phillips, Paco de Lucia, Andres Segovia, Strunz & Farah, Ottmar Leibert, Peter White, Earl Klugh among others. This has to be the worst guitar album in history. The whole CD sounds like a musician practicing or trying to tune the guitar. It like a warm up that never gets going. And the quality of the recording is so bad, that sounds like an amateur was in charge. Stay away from this CD and from this artist.

Tha Real Shiznik Y'all.......2004-12-22

Recognize. Dis joint be da real shiz. Sir Richard Bishop holding it down on da wooden guitar, ya heard? True flava with class and ill skillz. Boyakasha! Blue-grass meets Indian Classical Raga stylee with copious amounts of flamenco, and more than a tip o' the hat to our be-loved homeys in the Mid-East: hybrid pieces with no compromises, dynamic improvisations come correct, zero tolerance for B.S... and balls, ladeez and gents. real balls.

Rock Music:

Rock Music

rock music