Baked Beans on the Doorstep presents….
DWARFS OF EAST AGOUZA
Founded in Cairo in 2012 by Maurice Louca, Sam Shalabi, and Alan Bishop, the Dwarfs of East Agouza create improvisational, free-spirited music that touches upon jazz and krautrock, combined with influences of Arabic and Egyptian Shaabi music. On stage, the trio embraces their improvisational dynamic, resulting in exciting and spontaneous shows that allow them to venture into whatever musical direction they feel like playing.
After performing countless live dates across Europe, the Middle East, and North America over the past 10 years, the group has just returned from two explosive appearances: Festival Actuel in Canada and the Tomorrow Festival in Shenzen China. Their latest album, High Tide in the Lowlands, was released in 2023 on Sub Rosa and the trio has a new album slated for a late 2024 release.
Jasper Willems writes about their April, 2023 performance at REWIRE Festival in Den Haag:
One of the festival’s definitive highlights was undoubtedly Egypt’s Dwarfs of East Agouza, who rival the great Wolf Eyes as tried-and-true noise psych outlaws. Their show at the always charming Koorenhuis had everything: volatile, industrial-laced sound vortexes that rival Neubauten or Lou Reed’s Metal Machine Music. Halfway through they clowned around with poetic non-sequiturs and frolicking free-jazz tumbling-about, reminiscent of The Ex. Where a lot of Rewire performances court some form of discord or clash, The Dwarfs are an impeccable exercise of chemistry between Maurice Louca, Alan Bishop and Sam Shalabi. By now, you could call it a psychic connection even; all those baffled smiles spotted within the audience say everything about how much of a sure thing Dwarfs of East Agouza are.
Ailbhe Nic Oireachtaigh is a viola player
exploring the tonal possibilities of gut strings and wood in both
amplified and acoustic contexts.
Amalgamations of influences from improvised, traditional and early
music styles can be heard on solo recordings Oreing (Fort Evil Fruit
2017), The Rounds (KRUT 2021) and most recently Live At Sonic Acts
(Scatter Archive 2023).
She lives in Glasgow where she plays in free-improv quartet Dome Riders with Fritz Welch, Armin Sturm and Mike Parr-Burman.
An active collaborator, Nic Oireachtaigh has toured with experimental
Irish bands Woven Skull and Cian Nugent & the Cosmos and has
performed internationally with artists Josephine Foster and Circuit des
Yeux. She has created music for theatre works by Isadora Epstein and
collaboratively with Pat Thomas and Rhodri Davies. In May 2022 she
composed New Mountain, Reaching Plane, a surround sound piece for
orchestral and gamelan musicians as a commission for BBC Scotland’s
Tectonics Festival.
Recent performances include a newly commissioned work by Natalia
Beylis and a premier of Eliane Radigue’s Asymptote Versatile(1963-64) at
Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival 2023.
Other passing/recurring musical companions include Jorge Boehringer
(in viola duo Swiss Barns), Andrew Cheetham (free style drum/viola duo
Lus), Cal Folger Day, Lori Goldston, Josh Thorpe, David Lacey, Aonghus
McEvoy, David Donohoe, Anna Clock.
