NL premiere

The Handover is a critically acclaimed trio of musicians, featuring Aly Eissa on oud, Ayman Asfour on violin, and Jonas Cambien on keys. Through hypnotic improvisation, the trio draws from Egypt's rural and shaabi music and traditional Arabic music to create a new kind of ritual music that is truly contemporary. The Handover's cyclical and repetitive riffs and meandering, swelling drones allow for sudden moments of epiphany to occur; amidst the trance-inducing majesty of their concatenated compositions, each musician takes moments to shine. Asfour's violin may suddenly break free from its droning to summon spectral melodies; similarly, Cambien's keys might overflow with psychedelic soloing; while Eissa's oud occasionally careens out with pulses of shamanic energy. Harnessed together by their shared improvisational understanding, each instrument takes turns at driving and directing the music's flow, creating a groove-based kraut-rock-style motorik heartbeat, despite there being no percussionist in the group.