Ballroom Marfa welcomed Animal Collective and Sir Richard Bishop to Liberty Hall for an evening at the experimental bounds of pop music on May 25, 2007. This concert was free and open to the public.

Their first official release as Animal Collective was 2003’s Here Comes the Indian, but this Brooklyn group’s pseudonymous members — Avey Tare, Panda Bear, Geologist, and Deaken — have been playing and creating music together since the late ’90s. From their earliest pre-Animal Collective release (2000’s Spirit They’ve Gone, Spirit They’ve Vanished) to Feels, a collaborative spirit and the ideal of absolute artistic control have guided their profusion of group projects, solo and side releases, live recordings, remixes, and film soundtracks.

Legendary kindred spirit Sir Richard Bishop, guitarist and founding member of iconoclasts the Sun City Girls, joined Animal Collective at Liberty Hall. Since the early ’80s, Bishop’s guitar playing has defined the Sun City Girls’ mash of Indian, North African, and flamenco instrumentation, surf guitar and avant-garde improvisation. Such pan-cultural influences, as well as the ghosts of Django Reinhardt and John Fahey, will likely seep into this virtuosic and spellbinding guitarist’s solo engagement.