The Dwarfs of East Agouza is a trio that was formed in 2012 by Egyptian keyboard and electronics player Maurice Louca (of Karkhana), Egyptian-Canadian guitarist Sam Shalabi (of Karkhana and Praed Orchestra), and American alto sax player, guitarist, and vocalist Alan Bishop (of Sun City Girls and co-owner of the label Sublime Frequencies), when these prolific musicians found themselves living in the same apartment building in Cairo’s Agouza district.

Sasquatch Landslide, titled after the North American mythical hairy bigfoot creature, was recorded in Berlin and pushes the trio’s seductive and infectious blend of North African, Arabic rhythms, and shaabi songs with free jazz, funk, dub, and krautrock further into heavily looped trance-psychedelic, cosmic-hallucinogenic groove-based textures, still, with familiar, timeless, raw, and hypnotic improvisational intensity.

Like the mythical Sasquatch, the music is hairy, energetic but often feels out of focus, like a landslide of hazy configurations. As Canadian guitarist-producer Eric Chenaux and visual artist Mariette Cousty tell in their liner notes,  Sasquatch Landslide is «a whole host of slippery tempos and pulses as the organs, guitars, and saxophones loiter and lope over a skipping hop of beats, and everything emerges always mid-stream. It is all middle with no halfway point, no dead center, no bullseye. Everything twangs, moans, sweeps, slips, swings, skitters, slides, and grooves out of nowhere. And the almost-human voice with no mother tongue».

Still, the listening experience of this spacious, joyful, but unhinged sonic hallucination is quite addictive, forcing you to involuntarily move your limbs in some ancient but disorienting, ritualistic dance.

Eyal Hareuveni

Sam Shalabi (electric guitar), Maurice Louca (keyboards, beats, electronics), Alan Bishop (alto saxophone, acoustic guitar, vocals)