The band (Sun City Girls) called it quits when drummer Charles Grocher left this mortal coil in February of 2007, and Girl guitarist Alan Bishop has carved out a new identity as an unlikely acoustic guitar guru. When listening to SCG, you got the feeling it was about the spirit, not the execution, but on Bishop’s solo guitar albums, he is heads down, coaxing the intricacies of the cosmos out his little wooden sound hole. On his 2006 album Fingering the Devil, he displays an affinity with the quizzical masterwork of Robbie Basho, putting Orientalism (an activity that sums up large swaths of the SCG catalog) against Gringo counter-culture defiance. On Polytheistic Fragments, he ups his game to a Whitman-esque panorama of the world’s music. Read More....
Excellent review of an excellent album.
ReplyDeleteMaybe I should make an introductory SCG mix for you? Let me know if you're interested...