Last year’s Hillbilly Ragas by Portland, Oregon-based guitarist Sir Richard Bishop felt like a shot in the arm for solo instrumental acoustic guitar music, so it was a nice surprise seeing his follow-up, Hillbilly Erotica, drop so soon afterwards. With Ragas, Bishop aimed to focus his somewhat mischievous eye on the now almost infamously labelled American Primitive guitar music, a genre coined by John Fahey back in the late fifties, with his tongue firmly lodged in his cheek.
Many players now ignore the term, considering it old hat and being uncomfortable with their art considered a ‘primitive’ form. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Sir Richard Bishop decided to run with the term and craft a study of the genre in his own inimitable style. Like Ragas, the music on Hillbilly Erotica is as simple as it gets in terms of recording, with the tunes played strictly solo on one guitar throughout and cut with no overdubs, with all but one improvised.
However, Hillbilly Erotica moves away in part from the gnarly aggression of Ragas and presents us with songs that often veer into gentler territory. Says Bishop: ‘as morning light approaches, a clearing or two present themselves, with hills and valleys viewable in the distance inspiring different sonic landscapes.’ A song like Finger Revisited is a decent example of the easier nature of some of this music; a lightly picked pattern on the higher strings introduces the song, with a delicate yet intricate tattoo following, evoking images of the fine morning light Sir Richard references.
He continues in the notes: ‘One could be forgiven for feeling a sense of relief from finally arriving from out of the nighttime woods to a place which may seem less threatening in the daylight, but it’s a trap – the darkness of night is always right around the corner.’ Indeed, songs like Back Forty Lashes certainly bridge the gap between Ragas and Hillbilly Erotica, with spiky guitar lines dive-bombing the ear with relentless regularity.
But it’s certainly fair to say that there is plenty of calm here, as Postcoital Serenade (the only composed piece) demonstrates. The playing here is far more spacious, with fewer note clusters and a focus on crisp picking that results in a sweet and melodic song with none of the hidden teeth Sir Richard warns of.
Sweet Lips Spiritual is in a similar vein, but with plenty of shade at the edges. Here the notes have the clean attack of Postcoital, but with a more erratic structure, coming from the improvised nature of the music, which creates an interesting contrast. Like much of the playing here and as Sir Richard notes, there is a gentleness to the character, but the complexities and shifts on display add a certain edge to things that is subtler than the (purposely) more aggressive approach of Ragas.
This results in two albums that are intrinsically linked, but very different in nature. It also (perhaps) concludes a study of sorts into the American Primitive guitar genre by a master of style. The music on Hillbilly Erotica ebbs and flows with sharp dexterity, and the mostly improvised approach lends a wonderful immediacy and unpredictability to the sound. The American Primitive guitar genre has become saturated in recent years, and it takes a certain level of genius to breathe such fresh life into it, but Sir Richard Bishop is a unique guitarist and his inimitable style of music has done just that. Hillbilly Erotica soars with clusters of notes in places and creates space and quiet with minimal, precise notes in others. It is a masterclass of minimalist maximalism from a guitarist of remarkable prowess. Boom.
Hillbilly Erotica (July 31, 2026) Drag City