For Asher Gamedze, music is a means to provoke questions and raise awareness. As a drummer and improviser he has collaborated with equally engaged band leaders such as Angel Bat Dawid and Nduduzo Makhatini. His own Another Time Ensemble is a platform for improvisation and experimentation. In this setting he plays with musicians from the Cairo avant-garde, including multi-instrumentalist Alan Bishop of the American cult group Sun City Girls.

Another Time Ensemble made an impression last year at the forward-thinking Dutch festival Le Guess Who? This year, band leader Asher Gamedze was invited as a curator at that festival. The Cape Town-based drummer made his album debut in 2020 with Dialectic Soul, which was voted one of the best jazz albums of the year by, among others, New York Times. On subsequent albums he kept shedding new light on traditions and historical assumptions.

‘One absolutely incredible show came from the Another Time Ensemble… a brilliant set of free-form skronk that was unafraid to dip into mellifluous, slightly rocking grooves… we went from Riley and Cale to Can by way of Zappa and Steve Reid, and back again’ (review of Le Guess Who? by Louder than War).

Asher Gamedze drums, Alan Bishop alto saxophone, Maurice Louca synthesizer, Adham Zidan bass, Chérif El-Masri guitar