Photo: Maged Nader

With less than three weeks to go until The Dwarfs Of East Agouza‘s highly anticipated debut album is out, the Cairo based trio have shared a second single from Bes. Sam Shalabi (Land of Kush, Shalabi Effect), Maurice Louca (Alif, Bikya) and Alan Bishop (Sun City Girls, The Invisible Hands, Alvarius B.) had already enticed us with the album’s hypnotic and explosive opening track ‘Baka of the Future’. The driving and transcendental ‘Clean Shahin’ only heightened our anticipation for the forthcoming Bes. The effort is coming out as a double album on April 29th via Nawa Recordings. Now listen to ‘Clean Shahin أقزام شرق العجوزة – نضافة شاهين’.

When stellar musicians like Sam Shalabi (Land of Kush, Shalabi Effect), Maurice Louca (Alif, Bikya) and Alan Bishop (Sun City Girls, The Invisible Hands, Alvarius B.) join musical forces, you know the outcome has to be amazing. Under the name The Dwarfs of East Agouza, the Cairo based trio have been creating music together since 2012, blending in each one’s different influences and styles. As the press release describes, their “instrumental improvisation-based explorations are propelled by Louca’s North African percussion loops and shimmering keys, Shalabi’s West African tinged free jazz guitar and grounded by Bishop’s driving Krautrock-style acoustic bass”.
What’s more, they are readying their debut Bes, set to be released as a double album on April 29th via Nawa Recordings. And we can already groove to ‘Baka of the Future’, the hypnotic and explosive opening track, clocking in at nearly ten minutes.

In other related news, and ahead of the album’s release, Dwarfs of East Agouza are currently on the road performing their new material for the first time to lucky European audiences. Having just played in Sweden and at Berlin’s CTM Festival, the trio’s tour includes stops in Germany, Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland and France.