Imal Gnawa
Birds64 Downing Street, New York 10014
Imal Gnawa is billed at Birds for a live set in the club’s basement listening room. The available listing does not give a program, guest performers, release tie-in, tribute, or other details specific to the evening. What is clear is that the night presents the New York project in a room built for close listening, with bench seating and a bar for conversation between sets.
Imal Gnawa is a New York duo rooted in Moroccan Gnawa tradition, which it describes as “North African music by way of New York.” WNYC identifies the pair’s core sound as traditional sintir, a lute, and metal krakrebs castanets, joined by electronic textures and drum machines. The project’s own language frames the music as Gnawa’s deep spiritual and rhythmic legacy meeting bold futurism, with modern production and ambient electronic textures extending those traditions. Its debut EP, Twilight Prophecy, arrived in January 2026 as a limited-edition cassette on NYC label We Be Friends. Imal Gnawa calls the project “ancient psychiatry rendered on futuristic machines,” a concise clue to the meeting of ritual pulse, acoustic tradition, and electronic design in its work.
Birds NYC is a basement club in Manhattan where live music takes center stage in a room that holds about 150 people. The space is a listening room with a bar, so you can drink and talk between sets. Shows are ticketed, with two performances each night starting at 8 PM and ending at 10 PM. The audience sits on wooden benches, close to the stage, and the acoustics carry well from the back. It's a place where people come to hear music, whether it's soul and funk, jazz, or Latin jazz, and the room feels like a shared space for music lovers. The club has a history of booking top-tier acts, and the atmosphere is warm and focused on the music.