Founded in Cairo by electronic musician Maurice Louca, experimental composer and guitarist Sam Shalabi and avant-punk saxophonist and vocalist Alan Bishop, The Dwarfs of East Agouza create free-spirited music that touches upon jazz and krautrock, combined with influences of Arabic and Egyptian Shaabi music.
Now, the trio release their new album Sasquatch Landslide, their first record to be released via Constellation Records. In the words of Eric Chenaux and Mariette Cousty: "There is something ecstatic (an elatedly miniscule frenzy) going on here but it is pushed beyond the ecstatic: a joyous-grotesque rolling right past trance to dance. Psychedelias appear out of the infra-spaces in between the apparitions and overlapping ‘regimes’ and registers—pushed and squeezed far beyond the recognizable. And these spaces groove joyously hard like some kind of illusive House music, houses completely submerged in molasses."
The group performs at Le Guess Who? as part of Asher Gamedze's curated program. Their live sets are ecstatic and unpredictable sonic rituals, where dynamic chaos is held together by electronic beats, freeform riffs and microtonal melodies.
The Dwarfs of East Agouza perform at Le Guess Who? 2025 on Saturday, 8 November. Also performing at the festival are a.o. Asher Gamedze with A Semblance, The Mad Laboratory of Anti-Matter, Lonnie Holley & Friends, and many more.
Photography by Hans van der Linden
