Alan Bishop

Alan Bishop (AKA Alvarius B.) is a founding member of Seattle's avant-garde and genre-defying Sun City Girls, whose career spanned 27 years and over fifty releases. His work in Sun City Girls, with Richard Bishop and Charles Gocher, alone stands as a testament to his fearless exploration of the outer reaches of improvisation and composition.

And as Alvarius B., Bishop has penned hundreds of his own original folk songs in a primitive “out” style that is extremely unique. And as an interpreter of other people’s work, his songbook includes hundreds of cover songs from the obscure to the very familiar. This body of work is informed by an obsessive love of the singer-songwriter genre, folkloric music from beyond borders, Italian film soundtracks, and an extraordinary sense of humor. Over much of the past nine years, Bishop has been based in Cairo, composing & recording new Alvarius B. material while simultaneously establishing his own Egyptian-based band, The Invisible Hands, and joining forces with Sam Shalabi and Maurice Louca in the trio Dwarfs of East Agouza. His latest solo album was released in October of last year; a triple album juggernaut entitled “With a Beaker on the Burner and an Otter in the Oven.”