With Home Office strictures on artists travelling to the UK becoming more severe, the British Council in Afghanistan increasingly fearful of associating with musicians and a long list of recent visa and entry problems for world music artists coming to the UK, it’s impressive they are coming at all. But despite having to travel to Delhi to obtain their visas, the Ahmad Sham Sufi Qawali Group will play two shows on May 4 and 5 at the Tricycle in Kilburn, London as part of the theatre’s The Great Game: Afghanistan season celebrating Afghan arts and culture.

Qawwali is the devotional Islamic music and song most commonly associated in the West with neighbouring Pakistan, thanks to the late, great Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan who dared to expose the style to Western collaboration. A steady stream of Pakistani and Indian qawwali groups has followed in his footsteps – but Ahmad Sham Sufi Qawali Group is a rarer opportunity to hear an Afghan qawwali group.

They have been performing together for the last 30 years, have toured Russia, Tajikistan, India and Afghanistan, and were discovered by festival organiser Zahra Qadir playing in a Sufi house in Kabul in 2006.

Prior to the May 4 show at 4pm there is also a film screening as part of The Great Game: Afghanistan Film Festival of the film Breaking the Silence: Music in Afghanistan. Filmed in the immediate aftermath of the fall of the Taliban, it explores the moments when music first returned to the streets of Kabul, with footage of musicians and singers (including female singer Naghma) who had long been silent. Director Simon Broughton (Songlines’ editor-in-chief) will be at the screening for a Q&A session about what they experienced.

Ahmad Sham Sufi Qawali Group will also be touring Scotland, playing in the CatStrand in New Galloway as part of Dumfries and Galloway 30th Arts Festival, Knockengorroch World Music Festival in Dumfries and Galloway and in Glasgow.

www.tricycle.co.uk/afghanistan

Tags: ahmad sham, qawwali, sufi, tricycle