Last Updated 10/05/2024 12:05 AM EDT
LOG IN
CART
Cart Items :
Sub Total :
artist
label
title
catalog #
any field
advanced
New Releases
Artists
Labels
Forthcoming
Best Sellers
Reviews
Jobs
soundclips
[All Countries]
Argentina
Australia
Austria
Belgium
Brazil
Canada
Chile
China
Colombia
Croatia
Czech Republic
Denmark
Egypt
Europe
Finland
France
Germany
Greece
Hong Kong
Hungary
Iceland
Ireland
Israel
Italy
Jamaica
Japan
Korea
Liechtenstein
Lithuania
Luxembourg
Netherlands
New Zealand
Nigeria
Norway
Peru
Philippines
Poland
Portugal
Puerto Rico
Romania
Russian Federation
Scotland
Senegal
Slovenia
Spain
Sweden
Switzerland
Taiwan
Thailand
Turkey
UK
Ukraine
United States
Uruguay
World's Leading Terrorist State
World's Misleading Terrorist State
[All Formats]
Book
Cassette
CD
Clothing
Digital
DVD
MISC
VHS
Vinyl
[All Genres]
CLASSICAL
COMEDY
ELECTRONIC
EXPERIMENTAL
HIPHOP
JAZZ
Misc
ROCK
WORLD
artist
catalog #
label
title
any field
Tweet
Send Email
PRICE:
$15.50
$15.50
PREORDER
Ships When IN STOCK.
ARTIST
MUSLIMGAUZE
TITLE
Hammer & Sickle
FORMAT
7"
LABEL
STAALPLAAT
CATALOG #
ARCHIV 064EP
ARCHIV 064EP
GENRE
ELECTRONIC
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.
Other releases on STAALPLAAT
Other releases by MUSLIMGAUZE