Wishlisting, 3 July 05

New releases at Forced Exposure to covet:



BISHOP, SIR RICHARD: Improvika LP (WEAVIL 004LP) 28.00
"Fourth release from Bo' Weavil Recordings, Sir Richard Bishop is one third of the great and highly prolific Sun City Girls. A truly challenging and radical collective that move from punk to folk with heavy helpings of free improvisations along the way, while taking in the rich musical jewels that exist in all types of folk music from across the globe. In 1998, Bishop released his first solo album-- the wonderful Salvador Kali -- on John Fahey's Revenant label. Containing pieces for solo guitar and piano. Last year, Bishop followed up Kali with a contribution to Locust's Wooden Guitar collection, which also featured pieces from the kindred musicians of Steffen Basho-Junghans, Jack Rose, and Tetuzi Akiyama. Improvika features an unaccompanied free-flowing Bishop on a steel-string wooden guitar. Nine songs of wonderful beauty, showing the vast influences that Sir Richard has picked up through his years of musical adventures with the Sun City Girls. He incorporates numerous different musical strains in his virtuoso guitar playing. Middle Eastern, Pan-Asian and North African to name a few. The Eastern mysticism of Robbie Basho and the freewheeling gypsy jazz of Django Reinhardt can both be heard in the guitar of Sir Richard. But his influences are so far-reaching that to place him in any one or two boxes is unjustified. Here are nine pieces of virtuoso beauty that, with every listen, opens up different avenue of wonder." #'d edition of 500.

NOTE THIS LINK IS FOR THE LTD ED LP. The CD was released in 2004. Get it here or here. I've not heard either the LP or CD so can't vouchsafe for it but the description makes it sound interesting.



METZGER, PAUL: Three Improvisations on Modified Banjo CD (CKM 015CD) 13.50
"In a time where an increasing deluge of acoustically-oriented recordings are being pumped up with words like 'iconoclastic' or 'transcendental,' it can sometimes be difficult for the adventurous listener to have any clue as to how to separate the wheat from the chaff. Hype and hyperbole be damned; this is the real deal. Metzger's title 'modified banjo' could tend to confuse even the most discerning among us. While it is indeed true that a visual inspection will reveal an instrument so mutated that it bears little resemblance to that simultaneously venerated and reviled backwoods icon that it once was (he has added more than a dozen strings, a sitar bridge and otherwise mutated a traditionally limiting instrument into something entirely unique), it is ultimately one's ears that will yield the most incredulous reactions and ask the hardest questions after being fed their particular set of stimuli, as it is ultimately Metzger's approach to the instrument and the sounds and melodies he wrenches from it that are the greatest and most significant modifications being made here. Metzger's singular, irreverent approach and fluid dexterity in attack are made evident in his seamless hybrids of North Indian and Asian influences, jazz and folk forms through a vehicle that typically ruts its wheels in Americana hill country and are truly unprecedented."


also...

SUNDAZED____________________________________

NICO: The Marble Index LP (SC 5131LP) $19.00
"Like a bolt from heaven, Nico cast off the understated pace of her
work as chanteuse of the Velvet Underground -- and the heavily
orchestrated folk-rock of her solo debut, Chelsea Girl -- for the
relentlessly bleak and cobalt-blue cool avant-garde stylings of The
Marble Index. Produced by former Velvets' cellist John Cale, and
employing the harmonium as a lead instrument, The Marble Index is
revered now more than it ever was when released in 1969, as the
gurgling headwaters source of goth rock." Originally released on
Elektra.

THE WIRE (UK)____________________________________

WIRE, THE: #257 July 2005 MAG (WIRE 257) $8.00
On the cover: Jamie Lidell (How Super_Collider's former singer
discovered a deeper voice to become the godson of soul.) Features:
Keiji Haino's Invisible Jukebox; Magik Markers (Connecticut's
knuckledusting free rock trio put up their dukes); Monolake (The
Berlin techno duo reveal the magical equations behind their
streamlined sound sculptures); Tony Bevan (British improv saxophonist
electroacoustic foghorn fusion); Ornette Coleman (the veteran
saxophonist reveals more harmolodic secrets in a rare interview);
Animal Collective (The blissful sounds of the four fauns of new


American music, plus Ariel Pink); The Primer: Lone Horn Improvisors