TWENTY ONE EIGHTY TWO
RECORDING COMPANY
Sir Richard Bishop & W. David Oliphant
Beyond All Defects
Limited edition transparent 180g LP
Volume 1 in the Mont Meru Anthology
Released 2019
Richard Bishop and David Oliphant first met in Phoenix, Arizona in 1981 when the sprawling desert city was culturally young and somewhat innocent. The local underground scene was still new, open to all forms of DIY expression. Any given show could include punk, folk, free jazz, prog rock, noise, poetry and even comedy. But before long, hardcore and new wave became more commonplace and the experimental side of the scene was forced further underground by this increasingly specialized set of musical standards. Bishop and Oliphant refused to go along with what had become the new normal and over 30 years later, they have remained true to their experimental ways.
Although SRB and WDO worked together periodically in the 80s through Sun City Girls and Maybe Mental, they never set out to simply work together as a duo. Fast forward to 2011. SRB, feeling the need to temporarily step out of his solo guitar zone, approached David with the idea of a joint collaboration, knowing that David was capable of producing almost any kind of sonic landscape imaginable. The initial seed was planted when SRB shared his desire to work with “big-ass Tibetan horn sounds.” David was on board instantly, anxious to once again be working with a kindred spirit. Richard flew down to Phoenix in December of 2011 with nothing but an acoustic guitar and a desire to create something different. David took it from there. The result is Beyond All Defects.
“Arcane passages of light-absent reverberation illuminate Bishop & Oliphant's traverse of a quite timeless (or pre-time) underworld passage. Celebratory, atmospheric and obscure until the end.”
Stephen O'Malley ( Sunn O))) )
"There are places on this planet where the landscape dwarfs the sky. With Beyond All Defects, Sir Richard Bishop and W. David Oliphant have conjured something that is vast in its proportions and simultaneously microcosmic in its detail, pinpointed as if with a kila. Incorporating track titles that reference Tibetan Buddhism and swathed in the imagery of its meditational pantheon, Beyond All Defects weaves a world of sound into a music riddled with allegorical location recordings, sublime frequencies, and the low sonorous trumpeting of dungchen, the Tibetan long horn. Bishop and Oliphant have created something extraordinary, a thing outwith of the conventions of the contemporary avant garde (and yes, the avant garde rapidly adopts its own conventions), and something infernal and translucent that has a resonance as ancient as the far valleys through which we would wish to walk without fear if we could. Go, stride those places with them."
Ben Ponton ( :zoviet*france: )
