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SP ALPHALTD-LP
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Double LP version. Limited fur cover edition (color varies). Architect John Körmeling and maverick musician Charlemagne Palestine collaborate on a whole new system of music. A famous English conductor said that the harpsichord sounded like "two skeletons copulating on a tin roof". An instrument that was once the basis of every orchestra and chamber ensemble was long ago replaced by the stronger and, for some, sweeter sounding piano. Now the harpsichord is very much the preserve of specialists and early-music supporters and has seen very little progress in design. Enter architect and musical philosopher John Körmeling. In addition to designing utopian public spaces like the "Happy Street" which served as the Dutch pavilion at the Shanghai Expo 2010, and the "Straight Road" artwork which played with the mismatch between the curvature of the earth and our need to see life in two dimensions, Körmeling has devised a system of music that sets aside familiar Western tuning and is based instead on square roots, areas, and volumes. In order to realize this music, he turned back to the harpsichord and adapted its jangling sound to an intonation that literally plays Pythagorean ratios. Körmeling made it possible to hear ratios and proportions that we usually only encounter on the pages of a math book. Körmeling now had his instrument, but who would have the imagination and vision to play it. He turned to the veteran rule-breaker Charlemagne Palestine, pioneer of long-form improvisations on harpsichord, harmonium, and other neglected keyboard instruments. The idea of "playing a triangle" immediately appealed. Responding to the invitation from Körmeling, he said that "thiss Pythagoriann harpsichordd was just upp myy alley,,,,,,,,,". Palestine saw the new instrument and named it the Frogsichord after its color. This record documents performances on the Frogsichord made in Brussels, Rotterdam and in Cappadocia, Turkey. The sound is strange, perhaps even estranging, but Palestine has made it his own, and created a music that is rich and detailed, not simply "exotic". It's no longer a question of Western tonality colliding with non-European harmonic systems. Here is music that taps into the universal language of mathematics.
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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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SP ALPHA-LP
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Architect John Körmeling and maverick musician Charlemagne Palestine collaborate on a whole new system of music. A famous English conductor said that the harpsichord sounded like "two skeletons copulating on a tin roof". An instrument that was once the basis of every orchestra and chamber ensemble was long ago replaced by the stronger and, for some, sweeter sounding piano. Now the harpsichord is very much the preserve of specialists and early-music supporters and has seen very little progress in design. Enter architect and musical philosopher John Körmeling. In addition to designing utopian public spaces like the "Happy Street" which served as the Dutch pavilion at the Shanghai Expo 2010, and the "Straight Road" artwork which played with the mismatch between the curvature of the earth and our need to see life in two dimensions, Körmeling has devised a system of music that sets aside familiar Western tuning and is based instead on square roots, areas, and volumes. In order to realize this music, he turned back to the harpsichord and adapted its jangling sound to an intonation that literally plays Pythagorean ratios. Körmeling made it possible to hear ratios and proportions that we usually only encounter on the pages of a math book. Körmeling now had his instrument, but who would have the imagination and vision to play it. He turned to the veteran rule-breaker Charlemagne Palestine, pioneer of long-form improvisations on harpsichord, harmonium, and other neglected keyboard instruments. The idea of "playing a triangle" immediately appealed. Responding to the invitation from Körmeling, he said that "thiss Pythagoriann harpsichordd was just upp myy alley,,,,,,,,,". Palestine saw the new instrument and named it the Frogsichord after its color. This record documents performances on the Frogsichord made in Brussels, Rotterdam and in Cappadocia, Turkey. The sound is strange, perhaps even estranging, but Palestine has made it his own, and created a music that is rich and detailed, not simply "exotic". It's no longer a question of Western tonality colliding with non-European harmonic systems. Here is music that taps into the universal language of mathematics.
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SP DELTA-LP
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Dick Verdult, aka Dick el Demasiado, is the Philip K. Dick of multi-disciplinary art, the Moby Dick of "cumbia lunática", and the Charles Dickens of literature and experimental cinema. He first fell in love with cumbia when he heard his nursemaid singing the classic "La pollera colorá". From this moment on, he adopted the genre and reinvented it, in a perpetual degeneration called Cumbia Lunática, twisting up the elements of traditional cumbia, the "cumbia of the mucamas", to create an anarcho-tropical vertebral rhythm, one which supports every moving part. Celulitis Illuminati is the powerful debut of the anarcho-tropical gentleman knight of the abstract, Dick el Demasiado, eight dangerous tracks recorded for the first time on vinyl, songs that, upon listening, will liposuck all that grotesque accumulation of adipose tissue out of buttocks and brain. They interweave an amalgam of South American folklore and the cables of electronic music, the plugged-in Ranqueles indians, as in "Asi Que Los Que Sí" ("So That Those Who Yes") on Side A, surrealist and lugubrious beats, poetry made song and "the dead man's drool is good for painting watercolors", as he sings in "Búho Sin Un Ratón" ("Owl With No Mouse"). Euphony that will abduct you away to a viscous street party with "Son Cosas De Hoy" ("They're Things For Today") and to an eclectic and excessive dimension with "pero bien bweno" ("but very proper"). Side B is pure dynamite: "Mecha flan" ("Pudding Fuse"), "Sábado cultural" ("Cultural Saturday"), and "En la jeta" ("In the face") represent the perfect blend of Lucho Argain (La Sonora Dinamita) and Muslimgauze (Bryn Jones). On top of this, the album includes an as-yet unheard gem, "Llama Mi Abogado" ("Call My Lawyer"), produced by Dick himself and Manuel Schaller, the telepathic mage of the Theremin. When the Dutchman stepped off the boat and onto the block, as well as offering us the TV set, the sculpture of a deranged English woman who devours islands like they were sandwiches, the synthesizer, the sound effect, the African drum, the maracas, the indigenous whistle, he obtained for us the song and the stanza, he provided Staalplaat with the language and the poetry, the truthful, the epic of the ugly. Cellulite for mortals, cumbia lunática for the enlightened ones! Numbered edition of 500.
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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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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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ARCHIVE 043LP
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Azzazin is a double standout Muslimgauze album, first LP originally issued in 1996, as a CD (Muslimgauze Subscription 003); the second disc originally as a 10" of remixes (Muslimgauze Subscription 007). This 2LP adds two unreleased tracks. Tightly focused on a singular palette of monotone drones and swarming electronic buzzes, which arguably sound like a parallel to early Editions Mego. They're probably the most minimalist Muslimgauze tracks you've heard, and even still he manages to express a fine range of abstracted emotions, from aggressive buzz to tender ambient pieces and spectral concrete prisms. Starting with an extremely minimal opening number -- it's no surprise Finnish experimental duo Pan Sonic were Muslimgauze fans, based on this track -- Azzazzin has a much more electronic feeling than most of Bryn Jones's other albums, eschewing the traditional elements used elsewhere for a rough, quietly aggressive, and disturbing feel. The fourth track, with its unpredictable keyboard snarls over a low, quiet pulse, and the sixth and seventh songs, with distorted, high-pitched noise tones mixed with a soft series of bass notes and a slight spoken-word interjection from time to time, are some of the strong points from this intriguing release. Surprisingly this album contains no trace of percussions whatsoever and instead presents a dry and claustrophobic minimal electronics that sounds more like a Warp band or a project by some S.E.T.I.-inspired laptop artist than a Middle Eastern-inspired band. Outer space sci-fi sounds meet with found sounds and human-made noises, isolationist experimental knob tweaking and mostly hi frequency material loops playing at random. Beats are used in an extremely limited way throughout Azzazzin, with rhythm, always a key component of Jones' work, more suggested at points by the nature of the keyboard lines than anything else. draws a picture of the artist that is different than the one we got to know. Closing with an equally minimal track, Azzazzin won't be everyone's cup of tea, but adventuresome listeners will find themselves rewarded. All tracks written, played by Muslimgauze. Edition of 700.
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SP BETA
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Sound-art converts all kinds of objects, artifacts and places into potential sound producers. Through setups, twisting and staging, the performance is virtually limitless and can also be enriched with selected constraints like the Oulipian literary works. Between performance and installation, sound-art is an in situ experience that takes place on industrial wastelands, natural environments or public spaces. Animated since 2000 by Carlo Crovato, Radboud Mens, Jens Alexander Ewald, and Geert-Jan Hobijn, Staalplaat SoundSystem has organized many ephemeral experiences that only last the time of an exhibition, an event, hence the need to document, to embed the sound of these singular creations. After Composed Nature/Yokomono-Pro in collaboration with Lola Landscape Architects (AM 004LP, 2012), this record is the second "sonic photography" of Staalplaat SoundSystem, which gives an idea of some of its works. As a genuine conductor, on Installations Staalplaat SoundSystem mixes the strident noise of machines, the harrowing sound of sirens, and footsteps and voices, which resonate in the hall. For "Plan C", several sonic worlds follow each other: a little music box, cobbled up from a perforated paper strip; deep and eerie drones; metallic sound streaks synchronized with the light triggered by the faraway echo of the surrounding traffic which reveals the bridge structure; a line of wooden crates whose vibrations develop, increase in power and rumble like a thunderstorm. "Sale Away" has, again, wooden crates anchored to the metallic structure of the building play the role of a resonance chamber. Mixing with this drum-like sound device comes the soft hiss of flutes produced by vacuum cleaners and the purring of fans and radios tuned to 50 Hz. The two excerpts selected for the installation in Nantes give an effect of metallic overvoltage coupled with a mechanical moan. The three other excerpts of "Sale Away" are rougher, if not violent. The impressions of mechanical torsions and distortions, of noises that bang together like in the hold of a ship are more pronounced. In both cases, the spectators play a role, controlling the sources, the sound, with their mobile phone. This underlines even more the peculiar side of the installation according to its setting up. This interaction is in line with the Staalplaat SoundSystem spirit, which asserts itself away from galleries and museums and remains "down-to-earth".
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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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ARCHIVE 020CD
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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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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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ARCHIVE 031CD
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Limited edition of 500. Originally issued as the third LP in the limited-edition Tandoori Dog box set (1998), Libya Tour Guide is reissued here as a standalone CD following corresponding editions of the box's first two discs, Jaagheed Zarb (2008) and Tandoor Dog (ARCHIVE 013CD, 2013), and again the increased space of the CD medium has allowed for the inclusion of previously unreleased material from the original tape. Although a version of "Rebiana sand sea" originally surfaced on the 1998 Melt EP, it is restored to its proper place in this sprawling 22-track CD, along with "Tubruq sand bank" and the 12-minute "Aqua Tingktyur." As with many of Bryn Jones's longer albums as Muslimgauze, Libya Tour Guide ranges over different sounds and modes as it goes, from the near-collage of short pieces featured near the beginning to the subdued, sinister pulsing of "Great satan shadow" to the extended, sometimes digitally shredded journey of "Aqua Tingktyur." Even more than normal, here Jones's tracks comment on each other, with the already hectic squiggles of "Benzedrine, effendi" immediately answered with the fiercer distortions of the same sound on "No, benzedrine, effendi" and "East of tarabulus" taking the listener further than "Tarabulus." The result, whether it's the richly echoing hand percussion of "Kurnel" or the choking static of "Rebiana sand sea," is as intoxicating as always.
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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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MUSLIM 001CD
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2015 rerelease of the 1995 first release in the Muslimgauze subscription series, with updated artwork. Edition of 500. Izlamaphobia starts with an aggressive blast, "Hudood ordinance." With a rhythm track consisting of extremely tweaked and processed electronic beats and bleeps and only the gentlest of Arabic string instruments deep in the mix to relate things to a more familiar Muslimgauze sound, the song sets the general mood for the rest of Izlamaphobia. This said, Bryn Jones's specific talent was such that even without that, this would still sound like him, his trademark care and obsessiveness in terms of percussion again evident. With a variety of romanticized (some might say stereotypical) song titles like "The eternal illusionist of oid Bachdad" and "Lahore morphine market," Izlamaphobia has two chief artistic themes, if anything. On the one hand, Jones's incorporation of hip-hop and funk beats was never stronger than on Izlamaphobia, providing songs like "Gilded madrasa" and "The public flogger of Lahore" with a wickedly fierce kick and drive. On the other, the strained, alien treatments on many of the songs would be right at home on innumerable Warp Records releases of the '90s, with squelching rhythms, undanceable dance tracks, and, quite unsurprisingly, a desire to avoid expected techno clichés. With these two strains combined on many songs by Jones, the results are wonderfully slamming, strange tracks such as "Khadija and fereshta." Not everything is quite so dramatically different from other Muslimgauze releases, with the incorporation of multilayered acoustic percussion cropping up more than once, such as on "Hijab muzzle." Everything is just that little bit dirtier in sound, though, and all the more intriguing for it.
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ARCHIVE 007CD
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2009 release. Sulaymaniyah is part of Staalplaat's ongoing Muslimgauze archive series. The masters were originally submitted in 1997, then "replaced" by what became Vampire of Tehran, released early in 1998. It was not uncommon for the prolific Bryn Jones to replace masters with what he believed to be a more fit release. Short of two tracks, "Fez Tishan" and "Hamas Pulse of Revenge," this is Vampire of Tehran with nine additional, previously unreleased tracks. Because Sulaymaniyah was "replaced," it was stored in Staalplaat's vaults until its first CD release in 2009, a decade after Jones's passing in 1999, and it will take several more years before Staalplaat has completely caught up with additional "replaced" and unreleased masters. Sulaymaniyah is stylistically varied, with ethno-electro, ethno-breakbeat, and several dub cuts. Ethno-electro/breaks are analogous to urban dance/hip hop, with catchy, distortion-ridden breaks and heavily edited ethnic music, cut up and reassembled into Frankenstein hybrids, sometimes further complicated with dub elements. Wanton mixtures of styles are one of many defining qualities of Muslimgauze music. Like "replaced" masters, versions of tracks such as "Arabs Improved Zpain" and "Arabs Return Zpain" demonstrate Jones's near obsessive search for the right sound. For those who appreciate the later rhythmic ethno-breaks and dub phase of Muslimgauze circa Tandoori Dog, Sulaymaniyah is a must-have. Limited edition of 500.
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ARCHIVE 009CD
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2009 release. Part of Staalplaat's ongoing Muslimgauze archive series, Sycophant of Purdah was submitted in 1994 then "replaced" by another master Bryn Jones felt more fit for release. Sycophant then languished in the vaults until its first CD release in 2009, a decade after Jones's passing in 1999. Sycophant opens with a radio broadcast on the ongoing Palestinian crisis set to breakbeats and marmalade-thick bass lines; the forward to another sonic treatise on struggles of the Muslim world. Tracks that follow are more consistent with industrial stylings of the Muslimgauze oeuvre including Zealot (1994), Blue Mosque (1994), Silknoose (1995), and Izlamaphobia (1995). Industrial, in the context of Muslimgauze, is often characterized by tightly woven percussion loops with scant variance while melodies hover. Additionally, tracks like "Radif Avaz and Dastgah" and "Mossad Evil" are another facet of industrial, in the classic sense of the word, meaning "mechanical", "machine-like," with little in the way of melodic overtones. The commonality is rigorous, dogmatic structure that is nonetheless hypnotic and engaging. Because the above albums vary, despite being of the same sub-genre, Sycophant could be considered a "missing link" that ties them together -- with ethno-breaks added for variance. None of the track listings, handwritten by Jones, are repeated on any other release, hence Sycophant of Purdah is a must-have for fans and collectors. Limited edition of 500.
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MUSLIM 021CD
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Originally released in 2003. This is a mostly beat-driven album with little background noise, ambient space, or reverb. There is also no big emphasis on Middle Eastern sounds, which (and you should be figuring this out by now) is a frequently occurring theme in Bryn Jones' politically-driven music. Occasionally, there is some melodic material, or a touch of the Middle East sprinkled in, but it's played down in favor of beats that could best be described as very raw and closer to early Autechre minimalism than something from the World Beat genre. Hiccupping along, distorted break beats sound like they were once made from real drums, but Mr. Jones has turned the gain up way too high and ripped the drums to shreds. Since then, they've been heavily tweaked, turned into glitches, bloops, and blips. A downbeat gets set, only for it to sound like someone hit pause on the CD player. Machine-like loops reminiscent of Krautrock repetitiveness suck me in, only to be shut off without warning. As the beat finally starts to seduce me and I realize I could happily listen to the same repetitive thing for the duration of the CD, the plug gets pulled and the beat is deprived of oxygen just as it finally proved it could "groove." Each title is a page in the Iranair inflight magazine. The title of track 3 comes from a passage of a Sunday Times article (October 4, 1998) about Bin Laden's men infiltrating the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir. Iranair Inflight Magazine was made towards the end of Bryn Jones' life and in addition to countless others (this man must have recorded about an album a week), has only recently been released for the first time. Record labels were simply not able to keep up with the prolific Jones while he was alive. CD digipack. Limited edition of 700 copies.
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ARCHIVE 029CD
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While the human voice has often been an element in Bryn Jones' work as Muslimgauze, rarely did he highlight it as much as in Minaret Speaker, the latest in the Muslimgauze Archive Series, and its concurrent release, Feel the Hiss (ARCHIVE 030CD). While elements of Minaret Speaker appeared on the 7" of the same name released by Staalplaat in 1996, much of the strongest material here is previously unheard. Jones' normal practice was to send in tapes to the label with only a title for each tape as a whole, then provide individual track titles before each release. Sadly, with his passing in 1999, there remain many projects with only album titles -- barring a séance, the tracks themselves will always remain untitled. The material on Minaret Speaker can be broken into two groups: the first, the ten tracks that make up the bulk of this release, make clear immediately why Jones picked that title for the album, with the ten-minute "Minaret Speaker Track 1" serving as a duo for his trademark digitally distorted percussion loops and what certainly sounds like a recording of a call to prayer, or adhān. The voices on the tracks here are ones that may well have come out of an actual minaret speaker at some point. On these tracks, as the musical backing gets harsher and more distorted, the voices reach toward deliverance; the results, even on wordless interludes like the string-based "Bamboo Bound," can seem more approachable than other Muslimgauze works. The four "Rest Tracks" that make up the end of this release form a brief bonus EP of even-lower-fidelity-than-normal works in progress from Jones, with "Rest Track 1" immediately sounding like Jones putting his own work through some new contortions. At times this material gets and fuzzed- and dubbed-out as anything in the Muslimgauze discography, a perfect accompaniment to the mix of soaring and pulverizing music found on the rest of the album.
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ARCHIVE 030CD
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Some of the tracks on Feel the Hiss, a release Bryn Jones recorded live to cassette in early 1995 but never had the chance to remix and polish before he died, use the same kinds of devotional voices found on much of Minaret Speaker (ARCHIVE 029CD), but here other voices are present too. Conversational or angry, male or female, English or French or Arabic, almost inaudible or forcing their way to the front of the music, these "Zilver Tracks" (the name based on a note Jones wrote on the tape) engage more directly with the world Jones was so fascinated with and tried to represent over and over again in his work as Muslimgauze. If, like most listeners, you only speak one or two languages, the content on Feel the Hiss can be just as inscrutable as anything Jones has put out. But the music, luckily, is also just as wonderful; for a set of demos recorded live to tape, the Feel the Hiss material certainly comes across as fully-formed, if a bit more reflective and synthesizer-heavy than much of his oeuvre. The lengthy "Zilver Track 4," especially, seems at times like a tour around the embattled regions of the world Jones was so passionate about, complete with echoing percussion, voices in various languages, even train sounds. Not that this is Muslimgauze's answer to The KLF's Chill Out, by any stretch of the imagination; the dark, shimmering "Zilver Track 1" is as compellingly propulsive as any of his songs. It's possible that if Jones had gone back to this tape his changes would have brought it more in line with other Muslimgauze releases, but as it is Feel the Hiss is a chance to experience the more contemplative side of his work.
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2CD
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STCD 110CD
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1996 release. Manchester-based Muslimgauze is one of the most uncompromising artists the music biz has ever seen. His music is as extreme as the political motivation that goes with it. For more than 15 years, Muslimgauze produced rhythmic music that defies any description. Sometimes lush ambient dub textures, sometimes fierce ethno rhythms. The events in the Middle East was his main inspiration. Organizations such as Hezbollah can find Muslimgauze among their supporters. Many of today's musicians owe a great deal to the Muslimgauze sound. That's why Staalplaat invited a host of groups from today's techno, house and related scene to take the extreme work of Muslimgauze and give that work dancefloor abilities. The reactions were overwhelming and the music goes in many directions. Therefore, Staalplaat present (with pride!) a double CD. Disc One ("Occupied Beats") takes you onto the dancefloor with the dubby music of O Yuki Conjugate and their off-shoots Sons Of Silence and Clicka, Drome, Extremadura, the fucked-up jungle of Self-Transforming Elves and the straightforward, house-y remixes of Human Beings, Elke Dag (who have a connection with Exquisite Corpse) or LØSD. The second disc ("Occupied Frequencies") goes straight into weirdness, emphasizing the moody and atmospheric side of Muslimgauze, in remixes by Nonplace Urban Field, Zoviet*france and Quest. Also with the extremeness of People Like Us, Starfish Pool and the master himself, Occupied Territories is a remix tribute to one of the strongest voices in music.
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MUSLIM 004CD
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2004 release. 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' 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.
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STCD 140CD
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2002 release. This is the third in Staalplaat's bi-annual series of "Best of limited edition Muslimgauze." These CDs are intended for those who think that Muslimgauze was an over-productive unit, but think that they should still keep up with some of what Muslimgauze was doing. So after a couple of limited editions only, Staalplaat released a best-of. Speaking With Hamas was compiled by Bryn Jones himself early 1997 and he thought it would be nice to include a new, previously-unreleased track. In his words: "It's for people who don't deserve it."
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MUSLIM 012CD
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2004 release. Instead of the drones and mostly beatless atmospheres of many previous Muslimgauze recordings, Zuriff Moussa presents quite a danceable switch for Bryn Jones. Dedicated to a Palestinian martyr, the album sounds like a cleaner version of Techno Animal, with Eastern influences instead of dub. "Turkquoize Label" and "Brazil Marijuana" are surprisingly infectious, with distorted breakbeats and the patented Muslimgauze phased-channel drone. There are 24 tracks spread across more than an hour, so there isn't a large amount of time for each track, though several are presented in suites, like "Anti Arab America." For messed-up beat fans who are able to find it, Zuriff Moussa is close to a crucial purchase.
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MUSLIM 011CD
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2004 release. A gentler release than many in the limited edition subscription series, Sandtrafikar fits into the vein of such works as Zul'm and Drugsherpa, with a low-key propulsion balanced against generally downbeat, dark arrangements, all succeeding in conveying a sense of beauty and mystery mixed with a strange, slight dread. The opening title tracks complement each other well, and share similar elements such as a recurrent conversational sample and moody keyboards. The first has a more loping feel in terms of percussion, while the second is driven by a quick electronic beat; both use the bells which have appeared on so many other Muslimgauze recordings over the years. After the minute-long snippet, "God and I," the first "Baku Oil Field" ratchets up the brooding feeling even more: soft machine-like growls and wheezes rise from deep in the mix, with only an occasional bell and brief echoing samples of percussion and string instruments, calling to mind more familiar Muslimgauze works -- until a growth in general intensity at the end. It's quite wonderful, and the similarly-named track which follows continues that flow, with percussion added throughout. Following another brief track, Sandtrafikar concludes with "Remix by the Rootsman," which is indeed the UK dub/dance figure tackling the title song. He comes up with a rough, shuffling bass drone mix that fits in quite well, although he's not simply trying to ape Muslimgauze. It makes for a fine conclusion to one of Bryn Jones' best all-around efforts.
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