Turning a gimlet eye to the American Primitive guitar style, Sir Richard Bishop’s new album Hillbilly Ragas runs through histories both known and unknown to nail down Rick’s take on “primitive” acoustic sounds. As the mad dash towards Hillbilly Ragas continues, another single tumbles down the ol’ mountain today — listen to “Pass the Juggernaut” and check out Richard’s new music video too, why dontcha?
“Pass the Juggernaut” renders the colonies’ mutated musical inheritance with brooding aggression — the sound of tradition near severed from its source and played with spirited aplomb in the new world. In three passes, Sir Rick’s jagged, blunted strikes grow taut, drawing ever closer to the bone. Intense and intimate music to drive dancers before the fire when there’s nowhere else to go, except deeper into yer poor, pagan soul. The music video flicks hues from the cover art into a scrambling dance of color, buzzing like each string on Sir Richard Bishop’s axe.
With Hillbilly Ragas, 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. The resulting nine pieces of solo acoustic guitar music are back-to-basics, no overdub territory: raw, aggressive, and “opposed to anything predictable or overly melodic” as the man puts it himself. Discover Hillbilly Ragas for yourself on September 26, 2025, and see Sir Richard Bishop out in the wilderness this fall on tour!
