Wowee, guise!

I nearly, literally, honestly forgot I had a blog. So here I am to post so you don't assume I absolutely forgot about it. Of course I've been posting this ENTIRE time and YOU failed to notice. Right?

Limited Edition ficshe Cd's Available For Pre-Order Now

Pre-order the newest release 'Elemental Mediums' by Friday 4/15/2016.

$22 via PayPal to Courie.Bishop@gmail.com with your shipping info.

'Elemental Mediums' combines ambient music and guided mediation for self-exploration in a modern electronic soundscape. Beginning with the element of earth you are guided to calm your body. Air's meditation brings a simple awareness to the flow of thoughts and strengthens focus. Water relaxes your emotional landscape and allows you cool reflection. Fire strengthens your inner purpose and heightens your perceptions of self. The cd concludes with tracks inspired by Norse traditions and ceremonial banishing.

I have been meditating since I was eight years old and have honed my skills working with varied groups and individuals at every skill level. Participating or leading meditations, I have an innate sense of how to calm and use my voice to engage the conscious mind in relaxing into it's natural state of peace. I wanted to share my experience and extend that to those interested in my music in general. This is a side of ficshe you don't get to experience at shows, it's the side of ficshe that is YOU.

Making my own ficshe discs is an artistic labor of love. Each release has its own aesthetic and process for embellishment. I focus on reducing waste and increasing artistic quality by hand painting each disc (absolutely CD player safe) and creating origami style CD cases. Each disc is painted, stenciled, and sealed in polyurethane to protect it. I create origami cases for each one and lovingly package them up with other goodies like one inch rock and roll buttons.

Log In to PayPal and send $22 to Courie.Bishop@gmail.com to reserve your disc now!

Check out something similar to what you might expect from this new release: LBRP (Solar)

2015 Special Edition

Examples of Stencils & Handpainting

The Contents Of An Artist

abridged & abstracted

e-zine release february 2o15

This is the concept cover art for excerpts from my personal diaries, journals, sketchbooks, and rough drafts from 2k14, uneditied, yet curated for an e-zine. I've been dreaming of making a new zine for months and had a lot of material building, but it was all just in it's first stage, or so I thought.

I've re-discovered the art of imperfection as beauty and so I'm sharing the unfinished work of the year. I'm sharing a very important part of my entire life that's unique to me in it's own way.

I'm a passionate journal keeper and have been for a very, very long time. In a way I feel like it's my only opportunity to express myself despite time and space. The journals are not permanent by any means, but there is still a record actually being kept. I can't know what will happen to this material and that's part of the wonder of making the books, wanting to immortalize a moment in life in a medium that may not even last beyond my own life time.

I've picked up as many transcribed and facsimiled diaries as I could find from writers and artists I've admired. I've even ended up with a few abandoned journals written by complete strangers. Like with most things there is lots of chaff. The really interesting pages have a visual element to then. There's specificity alongside vagueness. In mine, too, are bits about my personal life to stream of consciousness writing and even bits art marketing plans and concepts.

In editing the work into one volume I've been reading back into what was a full year I find myself entertained by my odd thoughts and sad for some of the down times I endured. There's a range from silly illustrations pondering what's cracking the pavement from underneath to beat word play about negativity itself. Not only do I get to share my creative process and learn more about e-publishing and formatting, but I get to dig back into my recent experience and pull something relevant out to move forward on.

Links for buying the book will be out soon, until then! -Courie Bee

Witch House

Quite a while ago a friend of mine and I drove around the warehouse district looking for a party we never found, listening to music. He sees a lot of shows and suggested Purity Ring. He turned the tracks up but for some reason it didn't go into my head completely. I thought I liked it but I never looked it up again.

It was only a few weeks ago when I remembered the name of the band and looked them up on Spotify. I got a basic account recently because you seriously cannot listen to Diamanda Galas with movie commercials between tracks. It's horrifying, really. So, I listened to some songs and there was one true stand out track. It's called Fineshrine.

I added the track to a mix I've been working on lately. The songs in this mix, called "In Blue," are trip hop influenced. The heavy beat in Fineshrine was what got it placed in that mix along with Megan James' vocals. I decided to see what Spotify radio had to say about their song and started it up. As in previous mixes a band called Austra popped up with a track called Beat and the Pulse. This one also made it onto the play list. I was really curious about what the genre would be because I identified with the sounds of the bands.

I looked it up and discovered it's called Witch House. The name was originally a joke, according to it's creator, but it stuck and people ran with it. I love the sound and listening to new bands where there are tons of synths and women is inspiring. I would dream of playing a show with any of them. I would feel like I fit right in.

Check out my mix!

Let's spend the weekend together...

Looking for something interesting to do this weekend? Want to sit back and enjoy some creativity after wandering around doing all the work after last weekends Art-A-Whirl? Friday night I'll be performing in Saint Paul and again Saturday night at the illustrious Club Jager in Minneapolis. Enjoy a relaxed atmosphere at both shows. Though each night boasts a totally different feel.

Friday I'll be opening the night up at 9 for a slew of dangerously strange acts. This is going to be the most interesting thing to do in Saint Paul by far. Eclectic doesn't even cover it. After my set you'll be aurally enticed by the maestro one man act called Primadonahue. He has his eye on conspiracy, creativity, and quirk to the extreme. One look at his web site and you've already entered the Temple of Weird, one you'll never leave. Third up is Well Trained Monkey, another one man audio assault machine. He plays loops, guitars, saxophone, and sings. WTM is always from the heart and always a ton of fun. Closing up the night is a band I haven't played a show with yet so I'm really looking forward to seeing what they're all about. I'm talking about The Future Was Then, a local electronic group. Certainly this evening at the Hat Trick Lounge will befuddle and confuse those just in for a beer. Check out the event page on Facebook and come down. We'll take over Saint Paul for the night...

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Saturday night at Club Jager is an experiment in decadence. I'll be opening the grand event which will feature electronica, gorgeous instrumentation, belly dancers, and even a drink special. (Har!) Scott Keever will be offering up his debut release, "Salieri's Revenge." I've listened to my copy many times already and I must say it's a beautiful album. Lush layers of guitars that create landscapes of a far away evening in your mind. A Twin Peaks feel throughout the length of the songs, echoing a psychic space of creativity and mystery that is rarely found in a bar show. Live he will have a percussionist with him and with a new, sleek set up for his electronics we're all in for a true treat Saturday night.

Dissociate will close out the night with his always dancey beats of destruction. With me opening and Dissociate closing we've become the sacrilicious bread that Keever's performance will be sandwiched into. A delicious meal of amazing proportions in one of Minneapolis' coolest venues. RSVP for the show on Facebook and spread the word!

Mpls Mayday 2012

Coming up is a really amazing show that started as a facebook post by Dissociate to get added to any upcoming shows. After several of us chimed in wanting to play more shows Joshua Lexvold of JSL and [301 Studios] record label took it upon himself to give birth to the brain child that became Mineapolis' inaugural induction of Germany's famous May Day electronica festival. The list of performers is solid. We got sponsored by Radio K and booked the gig at the 7th Street Entry, our own iconic local venue situated in the foothills of First Avenue.  Josh also booked the illustrious Toki Wright of Rhymesayers to do a tribal/house set, somewhat out of his normal vein of performance. This is going to be a special night and the first festival style show I truly am excited for!

New Uploads

Check out my pregnant soundcloud. I've been uploading tracks there for a while but I haven't been spreading the link around very much. I just recently uploaded my cover of Love Will Tear Us Apart Again and it's gotten a lot of positive response. Podcasts are picking up some of my tunes and there was a little buzz surrounding Ficshe for moment there. I've been performing this cover for years but I never laid down (what is admittedly a home recording) the track for online perusal. Sometimes things that would seem obvious to an outsider, like "Hey, people might like your Joy Division cover, silly pants," are mystically invisible from the inside.

I know people like covers, people like familiar things. I program cover songs because it's how I get that song out of my head. If I find myself singing the same song for weeks on end I learn it. I imagine myself as the singer, performing it. I program it.

Programming a cover is an intensive process. I don't read music and so I learn by ear. I play the track over and over, one part at a time and match the sounds or find a sound. (Say for the kick drum, I find one on my machine that's more "me" yet still has whatever intensity/flavor I liked in the original.) Because I use the machine I do (Roland MC 808, AKA Emcee Bob) I end up writing the music out in long strings of numbers. The track number, the measure number, etc. It looks more like math when I program a cover.

Strings of numbers and a love of Kali.

Writing original songs is a lot simpler. It all comes from inside and I don't have to worry that this note or that beat isn't right because it all comes out correct, it's mine. A cover, however, is hard because I'm trying to fit some wonderfully intricate song into the perimeters allowed by my machine. I have to study people playing the synth lines on YouTube and record over and over until I get it right. Measure by measure.

So one might think that doing a cover is easy and maybe for some people it is. In my world when it's time to do a cover it's really time to pay homage to the music that makes me want to sing and write. It's solve et coagula (the taking apart of something into it's elements and then reforming it back into a whole). I get to dive into the song, the melody, the beats, the words and then I get to express the part in me that connected so deeply with those parts of the whole. I get to show you how that song is also me.

More cover songs I've done:
Solitude Standing by Suzanne Vega
Wandering Stars by Portishead
Cupid by Sam Cooke
Elevator Love Letter by Stars