Shane Parish is a guitarist, composer, improviser and interpreter. He is the leader of the avant-rock band Ahleuchatistas, a member of the Bill Orcutt Guitar Quartet, and a renowned acoustic soloist. Parish’s most recent album, “REPERTOIRE” (2024, Palilalia Records), is a collection of solo acoustic fingerstyle arrangements of jazz, minimalist, and electronic masterpieces by such musical giants as Alice Coltrane, John Cage, Aphex Twin, Kraftwerk, Ornette Coleman, Charles Mingus, and more. Shane Parish is a relentless interpreter. The guitarist's catalog is full of folk songs, sea shanties and the Chet Baker Sings album thoughtfully and playfully mangled. Parish also notated and arranged Bill Orcutt's Music for Four Guitars for, well, four guitars — “their Tiny Desk is raucously joyful” —Lars Gotrich, NPR.
Parish first gained widespread attention as a solo guitarist upon the release of his 2016 album, Undertaker Please Drive Slow, on Tzadik Records. Label boss John Zorn described the album as follows: “Taking classic old timey folk songs, Shane has abstracted them in utterly fascinating ways evoking the haunting and brooding world of the American South. At times reminiscent of John Fahey and Robbie Basho, at times of John Cage and Morton Feldman, Shane uses these beautiful songs as launching pads for his creative flights of fancy, boiling them down to their very essence.”
Over the years Parish has released nine albums with his band Ahleuchatistas (est. 2002) on labels such as Tzadik, Cuneiform, and International Anthem. The current lineup features bass legend Trevor Dunn and drum virtuoso Danny Piechocki. In 2022, they released the album Expansion on Dunn’s Riverworm Records, followed by a US tour and a set at the 2024 Big Ears Festival in Knoxville, Tennessee.
Parish began a working relationship with Harry Pussy guitarist Bill Orcutt in 2022. Orcutt hired Parish to transcribe and produce a score of his album Music For Four Guitars, which became an instant classic. This led to the formation of a touring band, The Bill Orcutt Guitar Quartet, with Orcutt and Parish joined by NYC-based virtuosos Wendy Eisenberg and Ava Mendoza. The band achieved huge underground acclaim with their legendary performance on NPR’s Tiny Desk Concerts. In 2024, they released a live album on Palilalia Records called Four Guitars Live, documenting their set at the 2023 Le Guess Who? Festival in Utrecht, Netherlands.