ALVARIUS B and SAM SHALABI East Coast Tour

August 2014

From Cairo, Alvarius B and opener Sam Shalabi play shows this summer in NY, RI, MA, ME, and Montreal.

If you purchase an advance ticket, you will receive a free Poon Village Records screenprinted, not-for-sale, tour-only 7" pressed at Gotta Groove Record Pressing, featuring two unreleased recordings by Alvarius B and artwork by Byron Coley. Please purchase tickets in advance!!

Alvarius B.
Photo by Frank Schmitt

Thurs. 08/14 - Brooklyn, NY, Union Pool
.....................with Byron Coley
...............................(buy tickets)

Fri. 08/15 - Brooklyn, NY, Union Pool
.....................with Byron Coley
...............................(buy tickets)

Sat. 08/16 - Pawtucket, RI, Machines With Magnets

Sun. 08/17 - Somerville, MA, Johnny D's
...............................(buy tickets)

Mon. 08/18 - Portland, ME, Portland Empire

Wed. 08/20 - Northampton, MA, Feeding Tube

Fri. 08/22 - Montreal, PQ, CA, La Vitrola

Sat. 08/23 - Montreal, PQ, CA, La Plante

"I think it's fair to say that in AB we have the most inspiring and wholesome, cussing, violent and truthful musical interpenetrator of the psychic Realities that has probably ever graced this fair and fucked land."
Trey Spruance (Mr. Bungle/Mimicry Records/ Secret Chiefs 3)

"Sun City Girls were the Sun Ra of the 80s punk hardcore scene and the 90s indie scene, and remained the craziest, most interesting, and most inspired group into the millennium."
Tom Lax (Siltbreeze Records)

"His ability to dart back and forth between patient notes and unruly chords fuses those elements to the point where you don't know whether he's improvising or reverently recreating an ancient tune - and, more importantly, you don't care."
Marc Masters (Pitchfork)


Selected In-Stock Releases by Alvarius B:

ALVARIUS B.: Alvarius B. 2CD
ALVARIUS B.: Blood Operative of the Barium Sunset CD
ALVARIUS B.: Baroque Primitiva CD/BOOK
ALVARIUS B.: Alvarius B. CD

Selected In-Stock Releases by Sam Shalabi:

SAM SHALABI: Music for Arabs CD
SAM SHALABI: Eid CD
ADAM FRANK & SAM SHALABI: Overpass! A Melodrama CD
SHALABI EFFECT: Unfortunately CD

Alvarius B. biography:

Alan Bishop (AKA Alvarius B.) is a founding member of Seattle's avant-garde and genre-defying Sun City Girls, whose career spans 27 years and over fifty releases. His work in Sun City Girls, with Richard Bishop and Charles Gocher, alone stands as a testament to his fearless exploration of the outer reaches of improvisation and composition. From their free jazz/post rock psychedelic trio roots, to sprawling radio broadcasts incorporating noise, Italian pop, and sound collage, to gorgeous outernational Arabic and Asian inspired folk music, the group maintained their singular and uncompromising path from inception. Their musical restlessness continues to resonate in the wake of the passing of Charles Gocher and their subsequent disbanding.

As founder of the Sublime Frequencies record label, Bishop has released over 90 records, introducing previously ignored musical genres from Syria, Burma, Indonesia, Pakistan, Vietnam, Niger, Thailand, India, Morocco, Egypt, Western Sahara, Cambodia, Algeria, and Turkey.

And as Alvarius B., Bishop has penned hundreds of his own original folk songs in a primitive "out" style that is unlike anything that anyone else is doing now. This body of work is informed by an obsessive love of psychedelic rock & folk music, Italian film soundtracks, and an extraordinary sense of humor. Over much of the past four years, Bishop has been living in Cairo, composing & recording new Alvarius B. material while simultaneously establishing his own Egyptian-based band, The Invisible Hands.


Sam Shalabi short biography:

Sam Shalabi is an Egyptian-Canadian composer and improviser living between Montreal, Quebec and Cairo, Egypt. Beginning in punk rock in the late '70s, his work has evolved into a fusion of experimental modern Arabic music that incorporates traditional Arabic, chaabi, noise, classical, text, free improvisation and jazz. He has released five solo albums (including On Hashish - a musical mediation on German writer Walter Benjamin, Osama, an audio collage on Arabophobia in the wake of 9/11, and his most recent Music for Arabs), five albums with Shalabi Effect, a free improvisation quartet that bridges Western psychedelic music and Arabic Maquam (scales) and three albums with Land Of Kush (an experimental 30-member orchestra, for which he composes).