Bryn Jones was the one man army behind Muslimgauze. The man was crazy prolific, with something close to 150 albums on his discography. He died when he was 38 years old, close to 10 years ago. What follows are my favorites from his catalogue:
15. Gun Aramaic
.This is the best of Muslimgauze's ambient efforts. Great washes of ambient noise over collages of echoed voices and percussion. Ominous and trance-inducing
Lots of bombastic, pounding beats over sampled Middle Eastern music. His abrubt idiosyncratic changes in volume and distortion keep it interesting.
13. Hummus
A lof of different styles make up this one; Some really clean sounding dancy numbers, some loops that swell in and out of distorion, and some pretty ambient pieces.
12. Vampire of Tehran
.Rhythmic and hypnotic, with a little dub thrown in here and there. Sampled arab vocals here and there pepper this album
11. Izlamaphobia
Abrasivie percussion and noisy samples work together to make somehting that's almost Aphex Twin-esque at times.
10. Hussein Mahmood Jeeb Tehar Gass
This one is smooth, and really pretty. Lots of dub, drum and bass, and eveb hip-hip influcences - but with a middle eastern accent, of course.
9. Your Mines in Kabul
A triple CD. Big distorted beats over traditional arab instruments doing funky things are what stand out for me. A groovy 31 minute track called "Lahore" rounds this album out.
8. Observe with Sadiq Bey
This is more traditional in flavor than a lot of his albums. The samples and distortion are still here, but more subtle. Also, a pretty laid-back kind of release.
7. Box of Silk and Dogs
This is really 9 albums released together, posthumously. I think this was a way to get some of his unreleased material out of the vaults. It's excellent material. Descriptions of the individual albums from the press release:
Disc 1: "Hindu Kush On" (15 tracks/61:36m) Combines unusual Underground Resistance Detroit-isms with the recent sounds of MiniDisc electro-scuzz. Mantric slap-funk guitar blends audaciously in the rhythmic fold. Near-dance floor grooves are fragmented, infected with non-traditional methods and ancient sounds. Voices interweave from beyond the ether; it veers from barely audible peaking into full-on waves of distortion and back again.
Disc 2: "Rhiza Coil Of Rezin" (5 tracks/25:44m) Explosive drum'n'bass(y) sans break beats. He sharpens an innocuous set of North African wind instruments with an acid-edge. Themes from "Narcotic" are revisited.
Disc 3: "Sect Of Hari Krishna" (4 tracks/30:23m) The first set of longer cuts, Jones lays down faux-Miami Bass tracks, hurtling them into the future. Like Carl Craig, Jones' talent allows all possible combinations of percussion to carry the melodic aspects of a piece.
Disc 4: "Keffeen Head" (12 tracks/65:49m) Heavy-echo dub-guitar excursions ebb and flow into insane (or unlikely) horizons. The musical equivalent to an intra-brain game of Pong, his radical minimalism is punctuated by furious bursts of surrealism. Conventional beats extrude into progressing realms of degeneration.
Disc 5: "Deceiver (Part Three)" (11 tracks/46:18m) A spiritual continuation of the earlier limited double CD "Deceiver" set. The most out disc of the set thus far, defying points of reference. A low-intensity warfare, it draws on Jones' vast hip-hop resources.
Disc 6: "Ingaza" (17 tracks/67:07 m) Perhaps the most conventional in terms of structure, this disc contains glorious riffage, Aphex and Oval nods, and (even) near-songs!
Disc 7: "Staalplaat Sonderangebote Re-mixs" (4 tracks/24:46m) Four bands on Staalplaat given the Muslimgauze treatment: Spoke (O Yuki Conjugate), Reptilicus, Fetisch Park, and Bad Sector. Not surprisingly, they all end up sounding like Muslimgauze.
Disc 8: "Zuriff Moussa (Part Three)" (13 tracks/63:25m) Another thematic continuation of 1998's "Zuriff Moussa" CD (okay, but where's Part Two?). Sounds for all the world like the programming wizardry of Keith LeBlanc handled with the nimble touch of Autechre.
Disc 9: "Hafaz Al Assad" (18 tracks/60:34m) Radio Muslimgauze. Short sound bites meld into passive-aggressive soundscapes held together by traditional instrumentation and more disembodied voices.
6. Narcotic
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Atmospheric sounds layered with interesting instrumentation. Mysterious and exotic sounding throughout
5. Alms for Iraq
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Another abrasive one. Some of the best industrial strength Middle Eastern music you'll find anywhere
4. Sufiq
This one is upbeat and traditional in sound. I've seen videos of belly dancers using music form this album. Great use of Indian samples make this something special.
3. Tandoori Dog
This was a 4 record long vinyl-only release. I love this record. There are some dreamy, low-key pieces on here that I could listen to all day long. Some aggressive stuff here, too.
2. Uzbekistani Bizzare and Souk
This is the first Muslimgauze album that I heard. One of his more innovative albums. Unusual noise loops are worked into his infectious percussive grooves. The some of the tracks get really noisy and abstract - which is a good thing.
1. Farouk Enjineer
The most left-field, noisy, strange and unique Muslimgauze album in existance. Parts sound like they're being played through broken speakers, the volume shifts abrubtly, garbled vocal loops come through. One of the best examples of "experimental" music .. . ever.
posted by Dadaisimo at 6:54 AM
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