African music is the best music there is. At its frayed edges, in particular, exciting things are happening far away from the usual categories. This also applies to the sounds created by the trio Dwarfs of East Agouza: Maurice Louca, Sam Shalabi and Alan Bishop – an Egyptian, an Egyptian-Canadian and a US American. The have chosen the name as a tribute to Agouza, the district in Cairo where the three musicians shared a flat and at some point decided to make music together. Louca, the keyboarder (who is part of the stylistically similarly open project Alif, amongst others), is responsible for North-African rhythms and whirring electronic structures, picking up Arabic melodics here and there. Shalabi oscillates on the guitar between borrowings from West-African music, psychedelic and free-jazz, while Bishop (who has worked with various different styles as the bassist of the Sun City Girls and co-founder of the label Sublime Frequencies) uses his instrument as calming and driving force at the same time. It doesn’t matter if the outcome of these rather heterogeneous approaches is labelled African psychedelic, Arabian Krautrock or any other culture-bending term. Thankfully, the music on »Bes« rejects any attempt towards standardization. Instead, its aim is to rinse through our ears in the utmost fearless-friendly manner. Of course, there might be a bit desert sand amongst it all – but that’s only to provide the necessary graininess for improvisation.
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