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Bishopskin: I Was Born on an Island

“No one can be free who has thousand ancestors.” I’m paraphrasing L.M. Montgomery, but it’s dead true. We’re shackled to the past because it’s what has melded the present. We’re chained to its rhythms. However many centuries away we are from the nomadic tribes we are descended from, the same drum beats, the same voices, get us going. Bishopskin riff off of that immutable bond, creating music that contains both the glassy slickness of modernity and the essential, humming, throb of music at the beginning of language. Music for music own’s sake: music, as Iggy Pop has said, for “the sheer joy of just making a neat noise.”

Featuring lead singer Tiger Nicholson and guitarist James Donovan (of HMTLD) the band put on gigs that are a bit like attending a ceremony of pagan worship: imagine the theatrics of Jim Morrison with the musical agenda of Emerson, Lake and Palmer, combined with what the band cite as their chief influences: “ancient folk songs…and ancestral worship music.” High priests of the electric church of rock n’ roll, indeed.

The band’s first EP, Ye Olde Britland Isle, was released in 2020. Their latest single, “I Was Born on an Island,” is out today. The track opens with a lone voice, droning a hypnotic, unintelligible chant. The lone voice is soon joined by other voices, creating a cascade of urgent, beautiful tones, woven like a tapestry over a steady drumbeat. Haunting and surreal, the layered vocals showcase what a brilliantly flexible instrument the human voice is, as well as revealing the uncanny power in the sound of chanting. It triggers a reaction reaching far back into the subconscious, beyond memory, into the parts of our brains we share with lizards. It is supremely fitting that, “I Was Born on an Island,” was chosen for the group’s latest single, “due to the intense emotional reaction it elicits from the audience at live shows…”

Bishopskin Live at the Columbia, Filmed by Lou Smith.

A lockdown project that turned into an extended venture following rapid fanbase growth, Bishopskin are currently immersed in recording new material, bringing in collaborators such as Alex White of Fat White Family, Duc Peterman of HMLTD, and Seth Evans of Black Midi.

‘I Was Born on an Island’ is out today, on the non-profit label Isolar Records. You can purchase the single here: https://bishopskin.bandcamp.com/releases

You can follow the further adventures of Bishopskin on Instagram, @bishopskin, and @isolar_records.

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Bishopskin: I Was Born on an Island

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