They started as a neighbourhood group, The Dwarfs of East Agouza, with ex-Sun City Girl Alan Bishop, Karkhana member Maurice Louca, and Sam Shalabi (of Land of Kush, Shalabi Effect, among others) all living in the same apartment block in Cairo, Egypt. It’s tempting to import a kind of “community of sound” ethos onto their collective work; over the decade-or-so that they’ve been together, The Dwarfs of East Agouza have certainly found a voice, a mood, a tone. But surprising things always happen on their albums, whether recorded in the studio or in live performance.
Prior Dwarfs of East Agouza albums have tended toward the sprawl: side-long pieces on albums like Rats Don’t Eat Synthesizers (2018) and High Tide in the Lowlands (2023), and…