Alan Bishop is the founder of Sun City Girls, a highly prolific, experimental and performative punk band that is in fact impossible to classify. Bishop also founded a “world music” label called Sublime Frequencies, a deeply rich collection of obscure recordings from all over the world.

Sam Shalabi is a central figure in the Montréal “Musique Actuelle” scene. Constantly collaborating with all sorts of musicians, and deeply entrenched in his band (Shalabi effect) and solo projects, Shalabi seamlessly goes from  “freeform psychedelic rock to the most oddball abstract performances”. Shalabi is mainly a guitarist and has been increasingly exploring ways to integrate the oud in his compositions.

Both Bishop and Shalabi have an encyclopedic interest in musics of the world are avid listeners of Middle Eastern music and can accommodate for endless influences within their respective practices. For the biennial, they will spend several weeks traveling around, and recording sounds from all over the UAE. These will constitute the basis upon which the musicians will build electronic and acoustic layers and live improvisations, to create a highly textured, deep and rich performance.

by Haig Aivazian, Associate Curator