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3LP
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SONG 021LP
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$65.00
PREORDER
RELEASE DATE: 5/24/2024
Triple LP version. "Dedicated to a united Arab response." -Bryn Jones
All tracks written, played, and recorded by Muslimgauze in 1993. Remix by Abu Zahedi. Remastered by C-drik. Cover concept, photography and production by Dmytro Fedorenko. Design by Zavoloka. Originally released by Staalplaat in 1993.
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CD
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SONG 021CD
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$14.50
PREORDER
RELEASE DATE: 5/24/2024
"Dedicated to a united Arab response." -Bryn Jones
All tracks written, played, and recorded by Muslimgauze in 1993. Remix by Abu Zahedi. Remastered by C-drik. Cover concept, photography and production by Dmytro Fedorenko. Design by Zavoloka. Originally released by Staalplaat in 1993.
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LP
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ARCHIVE 041-1LP
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$26.00
PREORDER
RELEASE DATE: 5/24/2024
Separated from both its reputation and its sleeve art, the music of Muslimgauze explores the relationship of visual sensations -- space, color, depth, illusion -- to the listening experience. The music on Maroon is dub-like inspired techno music, laid back with voices appearing randomly in the mix. The thick drums and rich found sounds that densely populate the soundscapes on Maroon give materiality to the warm presence of the synth washes. The music is so layered and textured that it ceases to be aural and exists almost solely in the realm of sight and touch. Devoid of reference to any external reality, Muslimgauze's ambience gets remolded by subjective experience and moved around in the memory. By shifting the quality of perception with the producer's sleight of hand, Bryn Jones (the Mancunian behind Muslimgauze) makes explicit the interiority of the senses. Divorcing Muslimgauze's music from its image is like listening to Take That without seeing Robbie's pelvis or Mark's pouting. This is precisely why the music is so effective. Relocating music's power within the listener instead of as an external force acting upon the listener forces reappraisal and reinterpretation. The muezzin's wailing call to prayer and the shrieks of women mourning the dead conjure up images of a fierce "death-to-the-infidels" fervor in the Western imagination, and are recast as holy prayers for the ultimate, womb-like peace that most ambient music aims to express. The usually easy exoticism of sampled tablas and ouds instead hint at the dread on the road to the water-colored bliss of run-of-the-mill ambient and force the listener to internalize difference and confront the received images of Islam that Muslimgauze detour by such strong powers of suggestion.
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7"
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ARCHIV 064EP
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$15.50
PREORDER
RELEASE DATE: 5/3/2024
Bryn Jones' work was justly known for its excess -- of tracks created, of rhetoric, of volume levels, of repetition, of length -- and the sometimes-indiscriminate way he produced material as Muslimgauze carried over into his approach to the part of the business that involved getting people to actually hear his music. Known for the deluge of DATs he'd share with the labels he worked with, Jones also didn't necessarily restrict himself to just one outlet. Very early in his career, in the same year the first two Muslimgauze LPs came out (1983), Jones released an obscure 7" single with completely blank black sleeve art on a label called Hessian. Hammer & Sickle is to date the only release on Hessian (which may have just been Jones himself?). Those two LPs, Kabul and Opaques, are fascinating in the context of the full swath of Jones' work. They're much spacier, more drifting, and notably less interested in using the kind of Middle Eastern percussion and other instrumentation that's such a distinct element on many Muslimgauze releases. Hammer & Sickle operates in a similar territory, but if anything, a little further out from the main body of Jones' work. The side-long title track and the three B-sides here are all cut from the same cloth, spacious productions that mainly play rounded synth percussion against echoing, "bag of wire"-style dub hits. After the lengthy examination of Hammer & Sickle itself, the other three cuts experiment with altering pitch, duration, tempo, and other elements as if testing the ways Jones could vary the effects of the title track without ever ditching its component parts. His sound was already quickly evolving (even the next year's Buddhist on Fire is closer to what fans likely picture when they think of the "Muslimgauze sound"), leaving Hammer & Sickle an intriguing and valuable portrait of one of Jones' early side investigations.
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LP
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ARCHIVE 060LP
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Kashmiri Queens presents a more accessible side of Muslimgauze, featuring a faster tempo and fewer sonic overtones than his previous endeavors. The music's core is rooted in drone and raga samples complemented by a rich array of ethnic percussions. This 12" stands out for its authenticity, allowing the sounds of tablas, sitars, and various ethnic wind instruments to flourish openly without being interrupted. There's a notable departure from the usual style in one track, adopting a floating, ambient-like approach. While the music maintains a strong percussive quality, vocals make only occasional appearances throughout the tracks. It marks a departure from the artist's previous abrupt transitions, favoring a more concentrated and steady approach to the music. Sounds are allowed to linger for extended durations, providing a deeper listening experience. The beats take a backseat this time, although they remain a significant part of the musical tapestry. Notably, track nine is completely beatless, showcasing the artist's ability to create dramatic and twisted sonic landscapes with looped and distorted vocal excerpts. The tracks featured on Kashmiri Queens maintain a clean and polished sound, allowing the instrumentation and composition to shine. The third track weaves together drums, bells, a female singer, and enigmatic extended tones to create a compelling sonic journey. Track four introduces a drum-loop with a sussurus element and a backwards orchestral loop, culminating in an unexpected rhythm shift. Track ten employs a metallic tapping loop as its foundation, creating a distinctive rhythm in collaboration with the tabla. It also incorporates elements of strings, offering a dynamic soundscape reminiscent of early Muslimgauze work. The penultimate track is a moody and minimal masterpiece that plays with layers of metal loops, tabla, and zither, demonstrating the artist's innovative approach. In summary, Kashmiri Queens is an impressive addition to the Muslimgauze discography, staying true to their signature sound while introducing distinct elements that make it a must-have for fans of their work.
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LP + 7"
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ARCHIVE 058LP
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The first complete version of Eye For An Eye, including the two unreleased tracks "Sub Cahra pt1" and "Sub Cahra pt2" that were not on the first vinyl release. Eye For An Eye sounds very much like Muslimgauze material from 1993 (Salaam Alekum Bastard, Veiled Sisters). Much more laid back than their later output, it could be the best era of Muslimgauze. This one, like most of their others sounds dark, dirty, and hot. It was recorded as a direct follow up to Betrayal, with which this release shares common musical ground. Recorded right after the PLO signed a peace treaty with Israel, which still hasn't become effective. Much sameness exists along the lines of "Betrayal" throughout the catalog, and some rare, pricey items that suffer from sameness, such as "Maroon". What Bryn did in the mix is interesting; the cascading echoing keyboard and string, perhaps played by synths, is timeless in a place of cascading, crystalline vortices. It's all in the mix. This record makes an adventure of the sameness, breaks it all down, and turns it into texture-fields of tactile melodic density. The timeliness of the title and the current world situation.
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2LP
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SONG 011LP
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Sold out. Double LP version. 180 gram vinyl. Written, played. and recorded by Muslimgauze. Mastering by Yuriy Bulychev. Design by Zavoloka. Photography and production by Dmytro Fedorenko. Grad shrapnel and destroyed machine-gun cartridge were kindly provided by Maryna Fedorenko and Georgiy Potopalsky. Martyr Shrapnel was originally released by The Muslimgauze Preservation Society in 2012.
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CD
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SONG 011CD
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Written, played. and recorded by Muslimgauze. Mastering by Yuriy Bulychev. Design by Zavoloka. Photography and production by Dmytro Fedorenko. Grad shrapnel and destroyed machine-gun cartridge were kindly provided by Maryna Fedorenko and Georgiy Potopalsky. Martyr Shrapnel was originally released by The Muslimgauze Preservation Society in 2012.
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2LP
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ARCHIVE 034LP
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The relationship between Bryn Jones's music as Muslimgauze and the track/album titles he would provide (sometimes right on the tapes he would send in for release, but often determined later, sometimes even giving two different pieces months apart the same title, accidentally or not) has always been a little mysterious. Jones himself can no longer be asked, and as you continue to investigate the swathes of material he provided, you hit sources like the DAT or DATs that make up the contents of the new double-LP Turn On Arab American Radio. Nine tracks, the first LP/four tracks titled "Turn On Arab American Radio," and the other LP/five tracks labeled only "Arab American Radio." None of them sound particularly radio-esque, although given the simultaneous vastness and ornate focus of Jones's Muslimgauze work that gap between name and sound is far from atypical. Instead, here the de rigeur percussion loops that underpin this particular set of tracks, while occasionally clipping into the fierce distortion that Jones either loved to use or couldn't get away from, steer away from both the more consistent application of that distortion as well as the Middle Eastern and Asian influences he often used. It'd be a stretch to call anything here basic boom-bap production but they come closer to it than a lot of Muslimgauze production. And while those loops are, as always prominent, they're not actually the focus; settling into steady vamps as structures for Jones to pursue an extended and often more gentle exploration of the other sample sources he has here. There are stringed instruments, the sound of water, but most prominently or strikingly the human voice. Nothing is in English but tone and the occasional word ("familia", "passport") still provide guides. There are ululations, snatches of melody; but most often speech, dialogue, often tense and harried sounding. Is this what Jones was thinking of or referring to with his Arab American Radio? As with so many other questions about Muslimgauze, we'll never know the answer to that one. (Most pertinently in this case we might wonder who appears here, and what the context of these recordings is. But Jones never provided that with his submissions.) Here, even though those inexorable loops pound on, indefatigable, that emphasis on some of the people Jones chooses lends a measured gentleness to much of Turn On Arab American Radio, at least within the context of his body of work.
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2LP
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SONG 001LP
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Sold out; double LP version. Chechnya Over Dub was originally released by Staalplaat as a part of Fatah Guerrilla in 1996. Written, played, and recorded by Muslimgauze. Release produced by Dmytro Fedorenko. Design by Zavoloka. "There is not a single misanthropic ideology in the World, even in theory, acting more cruelly and cynically than russism ... No moral principles -- they are all like animals. I don't want this war to stop. I need this war, its continuation. This war will go to the territory of Russia -- whether Russia wants it or not ... And the Western countries, the world community will not let it be stopped in order to completely isolate Russia and destroy it as a state, so that this predatory beast on Earth no longer exists." --Dzhokhar Dudayev, the president of free Chechnya. April 1995. On the front cover, there is a "Coat of Arms" of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria during the First Chechen War for Independence.
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CD
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SONG 001CD
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Chechnya Over Dub was originally released by Staalplaat as a part of Fatah Guerrilla in 1996. Written, played, and recorded by Muslimgauze. Release produced by Dmytro Fedorenko. Design by Zavoloka. "There is not a single misanthropic ideology in the World, even in theory, acting more cruelly and cynically than russism ... No moral principles -- they are all like animals. I don't want this war to stop. I need this war, its continuation. This war will go to the territory of Russia -- whether Russia wants it or not ... And the Western countries, the world community will not let it be stopped in order to completely isolate Russia and destroy it as a state, so that this predatory beast on Earth no longer exists." --Dzhokhar Dudayev, the president of free Chechnya. April 1995. On the front cover, there is a "Coat of Arms" of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria during the First Chechen War for Independence.
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2LP
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SONG 002LP
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Sold out. Double LP version. Originally released in 2019 on Ultra-Mail Prod. Written, played and recorded by Muslimgauze. Release produced by Dmytro Fedorenko. Artworks by Dmytro Fedorenko. Design by Zavoloka Mastering by Yuriy Bulychev. "You cannot blame Palestinians for actions taken against an occupation force. You have to use force to free your land, full stop." --Bryn Jones
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CD
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SONG 002CD
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Originally released in 2019 on Ultra-Mail Prod. Written, played and recorded by Muslimgauze. Release produced by Dmytro Fedorenko. Artworks by Dmytro Fedorenko. Design by Zavoloka Mastering by Yuriy Bulychev. "You cannot blame Palestinians for actions taken against an occupation force. You have to use force to free your land, full stop." --Bryn Jones
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2LP
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ARCHIVE 045LP
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Listeners who know much of anything about Bryn Jones' work as Muslimgauze know that he was prolific in both his work and Muhammadunize, has what could be called a classic feel to it, with a very familiar blend of drones, string instruments, and synths, and varying percussion/break-beat patterns, in turn mixed with a number of hard-to-catch vocal samples. It's a formula used many times in the past by Jones, yet somehow he still manages to keep things just fresh enough, investing songs like the first and second "Khalifate" and especially both slamming versions of "Imad Akel" with enough unexpected touches. He incorporates the basic power of his work in the tracks as well, with both beauty and a nervy, hard-to-define tension as the songs progress. The sound palette of Muhammadunize is very similar to his ambient-techno albums such as Mullah Said and Gun Aramaic, down to the rhythms and the trademark tanpura drones and keys in C minor. The difference is that it's a bit more aggressive and faster-paced than the aforementioned albums, thus utilizing a similar dark atmosphere to a more immediate and in-your-face effect, especially as noted by the drum-kit urban-sounding pulse of "Imad Akel", one of the high points on this album. However, a favorite track here is the closer "Fatah Guerrilla" (also title track of the whole triple album), featuring a rapid echoed rhythm along with a barrage of percussion popping up and echoing every so often, sounding like they're flying through the room at a quick pace; the piece also features a beautiful flute melody which combines with the busy rhythm section in an interesting way.
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2LP
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ARCHIVE 056LP
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Listeners who know much of anything about Bryn Jones' work as Muslimgauze know that he was prolific in both his work and in the way he sent out his work to labels and other interested parties. Fittingly enough for an artist that feverishly productive and often taciturn to the point of frustration, he didn't tend to give much more information than handwritten track titles on the sleeve of a DAT. Why he would submit multiple copies of the same or similar tracks to those he worked with, often in totally different configurations, is now a permanent mystery, but it does lead to Jackal The Invizible, essentially a compilation of material from multiple other releases that Jones had also submitted at the time on its own DAT. All of the songs here were released at least 20 years ago (a few over 30) and as with practically all Muslimgauze releases they were limited and/or hard to get ahold of now. Jackal The Invizible is both a way to issue those tracks on vinyl as the Archive series has been consistently doing, and in interesting look into how Jones would organize and sequence his albums. The track listing here was faithfully reproduced from the way Jones titled these tracks on this submission, which is how you get Fedayeen's "Bharboo of Pakistan Railways" here called "Fedayeen Bharboo of Pakistan Railways 2001". This compilation as with most of his work was submitted without comment, so it can be asked, was it intended to be a compilation? Had he at some point decided he preferred these tracks in this arrangement rather than on their other tapes? Did he produce so much work and/or was so disorganized he simply forgot this batch had been mailed off before? Did he have a standing arrangement with his postal worker and just handed him whatever was closest to the door each week? The new juxtapositions can be quite striking; shifting suddenly from the harshly distorted blurts of "Resume and Shaduf Fatah Guerrilla 1999" to the cooly nocturnal atmosphere of "Abu Nidal 1987" and then to the dubby bass pulses and rattling hand percussion of "Hand of Fatima 1999" is an experience unlike much else in Jones' oeuvre, even though all three modes are ones he has worked in before. Engineered and mixed by J. Delf. Mastering by Rinus Hooning. Edition of 700.
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2LP
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ARCHIVE 054LP
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Narcotic is perhaps one example of an album in both camps of the Muslimgauze spectrum, it denotes the expertise acquired in oriental percussion by Bryn Jones after a crescent development and practice through action, part tribal, part ambient with shades of texturized noise, glitch details and field recordings, as result the listener is inside this intoxicant atmosphere of exotic madness, where the basic musical premise constituted by the consistent tribal beats from darbukas and tambourines contrasting radically with the eerie sounds from organic noise, distortions, and minimal jams. The opening track "Medina Flight" bangs on with a metallic sounding looped drum track that blares with distortion at some points while background voices chant out vocals nearly throughout. The track is flavored with other harsh sounds and even a few woodwind sounding instruments before subsequently breaking down and starting back in several times. "Believers Of The Blind Sheikh" is a ten-minute Middle-Eastern sounding dub track sprinkled with live drum sounds and more occasional vocal samples of unknown conversation. "Saddams Children" leans more toward traditional instruments, but one can hear the gurgle of electronics lightly in the background. The instrumentation of the album is amazing. Narcotic is a solid piece of work that covers quite a chunk of the electronic music spectrum, although a lot of the rhythms tend to fall on a little harder side. It manages to blend ethnic and electronic sounds into quite an interesting mix. The images of a surrealistic desert land inhabited by the bizarre and general strangeness abounds in between the strong rhythm usage and cinematic atmosphere unbound, subsequently the decisive progression from the album increases this sensation. The listener easily gets submerged into this opium like state, succinctly guided by the beats and echoes from oriental sounds that wander in and out of the speakers and far away and so close from the mind. Interesting and attractive the album keeps a middle ground status, half experimental and other half adapted for the tribal and linear structure common to Muslimgauze, the listener will find quite another of the many faces of this enigmatic artist. The D side contains two bonus tracks taken from the Iran CD. Recorded, engineered, mixed by: John Delf. Previously released as CD.
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LP
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ARCHIVE 055LP
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Long-time Muslimgauze fans with keen eyes and/or photographic memories may immediately notice something about the newly unearthed Sadaam's Children album; with some slight orthographic differences, it just about shares a name with a short track from the classic Narcotic (Staalplaat, 1997; the similarity and the difference is pretty much expected from someone who both liked to reuse names and didn't care for consistency in spelling as Bryn Jones did). While none of the four lengthy tracks found on Sadaam's Children actually sound like sparse, clean string sounds of Narcotic's "Saddam's Children", three of them never previously heard extended versions of tracks previously found on that release -- well, one is both an extended and truncated version, but such are the idiosyncrasies and joys of the ever-complex Muslimgauze oeuvre. That extra-special track is the mighty, dubbed-out "Gulf Between Us", which does appear on Narcotic as a brief palate cleanser but in the same year was also released by Staalplaat as a standalone track in its ultimate, 23-minute form. That sprawling version takes a rather circuitous route as subtle electronic elements wear away at the track; the more compact ten-minute version here instead dials up the bass wobble for a track that's about as chilled as Muslimgauze ever gets. "Believers of the Blind Sheik" and "Effendi" are slightly more straightforward, in that both are about twice as long as their Narcotic excerpts, with the former's echoing drum hits and quiet pulse proving to be a natural fit with "Gulf Between Us" at the beginning of the release and the even sparser, slower building version of the latter seeing the album out in slightly abstract fashion. Before that track, however, there's the previously unreleased and similarly lengthy (at nearly 17 minutes) "Trikrit Brotherhood Quartet", the only track of the four here to get more of Jones' traditional layers of instrumentation and distortion to form a track that seems to shimmer in the summer air like a mirage. As "Trikit Brotherhood Quartet" winds its way from roiling static to more of Jones' classic use of hand percussion it's clear that these extended editions make for another compelling look at Jones' archives and the seemingly infinite flexibility of his muse.
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2LP
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ARCHIVE 051LP
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The excellent Black September, a continuous, five-part, 68-minute epic, is as formidably competent as ever, although more for the brooding, surreal nature of its soundworld than for its grooves, which here sound almost subsidiary. The soul samples and restlessly evolving minor-chord kaleidoscopes that unfold throughout the work is prima facie evidence of a musician on a roll. Boldly named after one of the most notorious Palestinian terrorist organizations, the group which carried out the Israeli Olympic athlete massacre in 1972, September matches its dark black artwork and design with equally doom-laden music (mastered as one track, despite the five separate song titles listed on the back). The title-track relies on a slightly more gentle ominousness, with soft string-plucking reverberating around the beat, but things start to pick up accordingly with the more aggressive, sharp-edged electronics shading into a tense blend of percussion and energy on "Libya"; after shading away into a more minimal midsection, the track returns at a nervous, quick pace, with drums and drum pads firing off echoes into the mix as drones snake in and out of the song. One particularly gripping section has shards of noise firing off in all directions before settling back into the frazzled energy of the central beat, feeling like a soundtrack to a particularly good chase scene in a movie. "Thuggee" and its accompanying remix keep the unsettled edge up, with sudden drum and electronic pulse intrusions erupting over the main flow of the songs. It's interesting to hear how Bryn Jones's love of dub applies itself in even more creative and different ways than from his productions of some years before, exchanging the slow pace for a fast one and applying krautrock drone principles. A nicely stretched-out, creepy remix of Gun Aramaic's "Opiate and Mullah" wraps up this fine effort. This vinyl includes the two unused Return Of Black September tracks that were on the archive series volume 32 CD. The two extra tracks, however, follow in taking a much more cleanly digital feel, with many of the elements Jones usually uses present but in more stripped down or even mechanized forms. The relatively clean pulse of these two longer compositions serve as a refreshing contrast. Edition of 700.
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LP
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ARCHIVE 050LP
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Given Bryn Jones's rather slack approach to track titles (both being consistent with and sometimes even just supplying them), it's a bit of a relief to realize that two tracks with the same name are indeed related. In the case of "Arab Jerusalem", which makes up nearly half of the newly-released Lalique Gadaffi Handgrenade, that kinship is immediately apparent even though both tracks are clearly their own experiences. Released as the first track on the Minaret-Spearker picture disc 7" in 1996, "Arab Jeruzalem" (spelling also sometimes being fairly slack) is nearly six minutes of effectively shifting dark ambience, wordless female vocals drifting over the hand percussion, chimes, and static of the track, with eventual conversational loops discussing... something underneath. The end of that version is especially striking for the way the woman's wordless singing starts being sampled in such a way that it overlays the whole track (and, slightly, itself). The almost 24-minute "Arab Jerusalem" here might be called the Deer Hunter version of the same story, building with great patience and many more abstract detours towards what now seems like simultaneously an excerpt and, now, a climax. As with many of Jones' more ambient tracks, the great length just lets it cast its spell more thoroughly and entrancingly. The other three tracks, meanwhile, suggest some of Jones' other work but never evoke them as directly as "Arab Jerusalem". "Jordan River" is nearly as long (a second shy of 20 minutes) but strips out the vocal elements in its predecessor, focusing instead on a more active percussive workout (analog and digital both). The title track of Lalique Gadaffi Handgrenade might bring to mind the title of "Lalique Gadaffi Jar" from Libya Tour Guide, last reissued by Staalplaat in 2015 (ARCHIVE 031CD), but if they're sonically related Jones must have practically melted the other track to get this one. And the closing "Desert Gulag" (like the title track, a much more manageable length than the first two epic tracks here) bears a slight resemblance to "Negev Gulag" from 1996's Fatah Guerrilla, here what was a piercing, repetitive drone is softened and looped over more of Jones' percussion. The result is a well-rounded release that shows off many aspects of Jones' sound as Muslimgauze, while existing (like many of these DAT tapes do) in conversation with much of his previously released work. All tracks written, performed, mixed by Muslimgauze. Recorded, engineered, mixed by John Delf. Unreleased material. Edition of 700.
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LP
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ARCHIVE 049LP
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Unsurprisingly for a creator as prolific as Muslimgauze's Bryn Jones was, when he was asked for a contribution for any sort of group project, he would tend to provide more options than necessary. In the case of longtime label Staalplaat's 1996 compilation Sonderangebot, where Jones would find himself in the company of everyone from Charlemagne Palestine to Reptilicus, the selected track was the characteristically head-spinning "Kaliskinazure", nine minutes of insistent digital percussion bouncing the listener back and forth between samples of wailing women's voices and a trebly, blurry little whirr that traces the percussion. It's distinctive enough even among the vast Muslimgauze corpus, but as the continued excavation of DATs Jones submitted to his labels continues, sure enough there's more to that track's story, too. An extended "Kaliskinazure" makes up the second of four tracks on Babylon Is Iraq, although it's been lost to the mists of time whether an outside editor excised the more drifting, less needling coda that makes up the extra six minutes found here, or whether Jones simply submitted both versions of the track at different times. This more complete version of "Kaliskinazure" is surrounded by shorter tracks, with the opening "Kaliskinazure _ Momada" sounding not very much like either track it references (instead being a barely-there wisp of far-away sampled wind instruments and what sounds like treated cymbal sounds) and the title track constantly coming to a full, roiling digital boil. The lengthy "Momada" closes out the album with a different, more tersely internal arrangement surrounding the same percussion pattern that will be familiar to any Sonderangebot fans, although the way the quieter atmosphere transforms the feeling of that rhythm indicates once more than Jones's way of reconfiguring his pieces over and over was perhaps more purposive and even more effective than he's sometimes given credit for. The result is a fascinating expansion on one of Muslimgauze's strongest stand-alone moments, as well as a fitting tribute to an artist who would never give you a track if an album would do. such strong powers of suggestion. Cover made of 1mm thick bleu cardboard, sewed, text silver glitter screen-print, black image, name, and side lines are lasercut -- All done by hand! All tracks written, performed, mixed by Muslimgauze. Recorded, engineer, mixed by John Delf. Unreleased material. Edition of 500 (numbered).
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2LP
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ARCHIVE 036LP
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Staalplaat presents a double LP reissue of Muslimgauze's Ingaza, originally released in 1999 (the year of his death) as part of the Box Of Silk And Dogs set. Those not familiar with Bryn Jones's style will listen slack-jawed at the sheer anticipatory nature of his sound collages. He was a cult artist, politically motivated for the Arab-Palestinian cause and a seminal experimenter with ethnic samples' and minimal and electronic rhythms. The atmospheres retain their original charm, full and gloomy, but pulsating with provocative emotions, different from the exotic and ornamental processing of certain world music. Drum machines, old synths, and percussion are all combined in a traditional way, without any computer assistance. "Peace is a distant dream," said Bryn Jones, in one of his last interviews before passing away from a rare blood disease, and on both sizes things seem to unfortunately still be the same. Ingaza is thematically and stylistically all over the place, sporting atmospheric instrumental loops one moment and jarring, heavily barbed and distorted beats the next. Differences between tracks, not unlike changing channels on television or switching between net browsers, predominate, with imagery conjuring Middle Eastern travel and tourism on one screen whilst grisly proxy war footage plays on the next.
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ARCHIVE 032CD
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Originally issued as the fourth LP in the limited edition box set Tandoori Dog (1998), Jerusalaam follows Jaagheed Zarb, the title disc, and Libya Tour Guide (ARCHIVE 031CD, 2015) with a CD reissue; finally, the long out of print box has been completely reissued. Again the increased space of its new medium has allowed unreleased material from the original tape to be included. This time, however, the extra material is neither alternate versions of Tandoori Dog material nor new songs intended for those releases; the two extra tracks here, clocking in at near 15 minutes and just under eight minutes each, make up unused material from the Return Of Black September sessions (MUSLIM 004CD, 1996). The contrast, even for Muslimgauze who had such a wide range, is stunning. The original Jerusalaam fits in with much of Bryn Jones's classic work, with a heavy emphasis on hand percussion, bass-heavy distortion, sharply clipped loops, and the seething hiss of static. The two otherwise unnamed Return Of Black September tracks, however, follow that album in taking a much more cleanly digital feel, with many of the elements Jones usually uses present but in more stripped down or even mechanized forms. The relatively clean pulse of these two longer compositions serve as a refreshing contrast next to the hand- and tape-made feel of tracks like "All The Stolen Land Of Palestine" and "Hessian Bag Of Camel Parts", an invigorating reminder of the breadth and vitality of Jones's work. All tracks written, played and recorded by Muslimgauze. Edition of 700.
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CD
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ARCHIVE 020CD
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2021 restock. Unsurprisingly for an artist as prolific and strident as Bryn Jones was, the flood of material he sent to labels and compatriots was not always carefully categorized. Also, sometimes he would be so eager to release material that if things weren't happening fast enough, he'd just send in another tape. And that circumstance is why the fascinating oddity Mohammad Ali Jinnah exists. Staalplaat has previously released, in 2002, the Muslimgauze album Sarin Israel Nes Ziona (2002). While continuing to sort through and release the material Jones left behind with his death in 1999, the Mohammad Ali Jinnah tape was found to have significant overlap with that now out of print album, but only to a certain extent. Six of the 15 tracks on Mohammad Ali Jinnah match up with material from the earlier tape (which included 20 tracks), but when Jones resubmitted this tape he also included extended mixes of four of the tracks from the original album ("Imam Fainted", "Yousif Water Pipe Habit", "Opulent Maghrebi Meze", and "Indo Muslem Atlas") as well as five entirely new compositions. The result is a fascinating re-setting of some of the music from that under-heard release. Whether Jones preferred one arrangement to the other is sadly lost information, but listeners now can appreciate a wholly new experience with the material herein, even if some of the material itself has been previously released. And the new tracks are fascinating, even by Jones's usual standards, whether they're the grinding, obsessively focused percussion workouts, "For Larger Iran" and "Burnt Pages Of Ali Jinnah Koran", or the cryptically distant likes of "Cold Turkey". Paired with classic tracks like the bass-distorted, Middle Eastern boom bap of "Kurds Eye View" and the furtively head-nodding "Zahir Din, Cabdriver Of Zind", the result is a release unlike anything else in Jones's discography. All tracks written, played and recorded by Muslimgauze. Edition of 700.
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2LP
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ARCHIVE 035LP
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With the massive amount of material Bryn Jones had left in the vaults when he passed away in 1999, it's hard to truly assess his progression, stylistic or otherwise, over the years. And his reasons for choosing to release one tape's worth of material over another's were sometimes as mysterious as anything else about his work as Muslimgauze. But upon stumbling onto the material found on the undated tape known as Ali Zarin, it's hard not to wonder how it would have been received if it had been released during Jones's lifetime. The three-part, 43-minute title-track (the only part of the material to be given a proper title) makes for some of Jones's most relentlessly driving work ever. As soundbites about occupation and Israel float in and out of the mix, a series of crashes and scrapes and a distorted beat contort themselves into shapes and patterns, wearing a cracked, scraping groove into the ground. For almost 22 minutes, the first part of "Ali Zarin" finds frantic beauty in the dense repetition of these elements; when the sounds remain but shift place and emphasis in "Part 2," it's almost shocking. Even more than most Muslimgauze releases, "Ali Zarin" sounds like it could have come out in the mid-'90s and remain equally contemporary. Although "Ali Zarin" could easily stand on its own, that doesn't mean that the rest of the contents of the tape aren't worth sharing as well. These four untitled demos and a brief "Rest Track" sketch show more directions in which Jones might have gone (but didn't, at least based on what has been uncovered so far), especially the prowling late-night ambience and conventional drum kit loop of "Demo-01" and the densely looped bass pulses of "Demo-04." It just serves to confirm the breadth of riches in Jones's archive, and make the listener wonder what else is waiting to be unearthed. Limited edition of 500 -- last copies.
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CD
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ARCHIVE 026CD
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Limited edition of 500. Although Bryn Jones's work as Muslimgauze certainly counts dub among its influences, rarely is that influence treated as directly or centrally as it is on many of the tracks found on Abyssinia Selasie. A rarity among the material Jones left behind after his death in 1999, this release features previously unreleased material that Jones had titled, unlike many of the tapes he had submitted but hadn't gotten around to preparing for release. The opening title-track alone, with its steady bassline and dopplering, insistent beeps, is as close to an unadulterated dub track as Jones ever came, even as the separate coda "Benzedrine Wallah" starts cranking up the outbursts of percussion. Not every song on this trim, focused collection goes in that same direction, but even elements like the wobbling percussion and female vocals of "Arab" share a similar sensibility. Even the stark "Mind of a Suicide Bomber" is more coolly menacing than overtly hostile, although as always with Jones's work and his positioning of that work it's hard to know how seriously, or sympathetically, one should take him. Unfortunately Jones isn't around to ask, either to take to task or to praise, but he has left behind such a depth of material (and was so generally taciturn in life) that audiences are left with only that to evaluate. The last track here is titled "Mea Culpa," and while it starts out as a fine example of the warmer, more head-nodding sound of Abyssinia Selasie before metamorphosing into a truly out-there echo chamber, after a brief break in the middle it surges back to life with the dubbiest bassline of the album, bathed in somehow welcoming static. Jones's work as Muslimgauze remains as enigmatic and rewarding as ever.
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