Label Description: Our favorite six-string shaman is waving that axe around again! Sir Richard Bishop wrenches forth fresh damnable truth and beauty from a musical kamikaze run through histories both known and unknown. Turning a gimlet eye to the American Primitive guitar style, Sir Rick applies his own bloodthirsty interpretive methods on a self-described “excursion into the dark woods,” to locate – and play along with – the Primitive’s moonshine-fed inner savage.
Label Description: Solitary, minimal and otherworldly guitar vignettes, recorded during nighttime/AM sessions throughout 1997, subsequently shelved and eventually forgotten over time due to other commitments. Recently unearthed, and mastered by JKB in 2025.
Label Description: One of the Best Times Ever Was Sex on the Beach And not the Drink – Nothing Metaphorically, Wet Wild & Juicy Sex on the Beach, Stars in our Eyes The Glow of reckless Youth Riding Waves of Pale Moonlight I Saw the Stars that Night, But they Were Outshone Always there But Always Alone – A Blink in Time, A Moment in Stride Inside so Close The Dance of Sighs, The Pitter Patter pattie Try it on for Size ~ It’s What passes for Clase Classy Both Here And Far And Wide ~
The Very Thing That We Need can be experienced as a temporary sonic journey, a drifting passage through layered soundscapes. Each track unfolds like a chapter in an inward-bound narrative, leaning into atmosphere over urgency, weaving layered rhythms and unconventional melodies. The album opens with a soft glow: piano and guitar drifting together in a quiet nostalgia. From there, the grooves loop and simmer, steady but just out of reach, like something half-remembered. Moments of calm give way to darker turns, sliding gently into a dreamlike haze that moves between the familiar and the uncanny.
In According To One, piano and guitar drift together in quiet conversation, conjuring a sense of ease, like looking back on something you never quite left behind. From there, sink deeper into the slow-burning pulse of Induce the Peasants. Its steady groove is hypnotic and unhurried, perfect for losing track of time and letting the present dissolve. With Santi Asoke, the mood lightens. Breezy and effortless, it carries you somewhere warm and weightless, a place where nothing is expected, and everything just is. Things shift with Of Money Use. Here, the familiar starts to slip away and you’re left in a vivid, uncertain dreamscape where imagination takes the lead. Finally, Asoke Hierarchy pulls it all back together. It’s a subtle revival: steady and composed, like standing up again after a long, introspective drift.
This is a particularly slow performance. I’d gone into it somewhat sleep-deprived, though by the third and fourth pieces, I was getting energy back from the music, enough energy to leave more space and allow the rests to speak. Thank you to the audience for staying with me.
The hollowbody Univox vibrates quite a lot–there’s a lot of air in there. Consequently, there’s a lot of air in these timbres: French horn, muted trumpet, accordion, glass harmonica timbres. This one’s a step toward a collaboration with silence.
The titles this week are references to the visual art of Louise Blyton. Thank you for listening!
Maurice Rickard: Guitar, programming
Signal chain: Univox Coily in Bb F Bb F Bb C tuning > Reuss Effects Understate, Reuss Effects Repeater Fuzz, Balls Effects KWB > Vox Wah > Hungry Robot Wardenclyffe Deluxe > Moyo Volume > Max/MSP eight-delay patch with FFT pitch shift, tremolo, convolution reverb, AudioThing Reels.
Impulses: Inchindown Oil Tanks ( Matt Gray mattg.co.uk ), silent5 Biamp MR/140 (Flat), St. Paul’s Huddersfield (near), Fort Worden Cistern
It is made manifest only to those who travel through foul and fair, who pass beyond the summit of every holy ascent, who leave behind them every divine light, every voice, every word from heaven, and who plunge into the darkness where . . . there dwells what is beyond all things.
The instruments involved in the making of this one: Trumpet Clarinet Telecaster Morphagene Microfreak Landscape stereo field Make Noise Wogglebug Assorted percussion
odd person returns to ingrown with long-player there is no place, available for pre-order now on digital and Hi-Fi pro-dubbed cassette. a 76 minute mega-release masterpiece of an album for the ages. don’t be caught in the rain without. pick one up today!
all digital and physical orders go to helping to fund the physical release. at the very least I hope you can find time to listen and enjoy!