staalplaat

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 (it’s one of the reason some of that body of work is still being sorted through and released 20+ years after his passing). 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” (although that album came out in 1998 and Jones sadly was not making anything by 2001, only leading to more questions). 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? (Well, probably not that last one.) One thing we don’t have to question is the quality of the tracks here, regardless of familiarity. 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” (possibly the most misleading to longtime listeners - it has indeed been heard on it’s almost-namesake album, but there it’s known as “Mint Tea With Gadaffi”) is an experience unlike much else in Jones’ oeuvre, even though all three modes are ones he has worked in before. The result doesn’t touch on every single mode explored throughout the vast body of Jones’ work (you’d need a box set for that), but does prove to be a multifaceted experience that also serves as an excellent introduction to or refresher on Muslimgauze as a whole.

Two songs from the 1988 work "Iran" in "Narcotic", which was released on CD only in 1997 by the now-deceased British master Muslimgauze, who has repeatedly attacked Arabic / dub through day and night music. An edited version of the work is now available from the well-established prestigious , which represents the Dutch experimental music world! A radical and refreshing mix of elements such as tribal, ambient, glitch, and fill record. Non-standard trance music that mixes consistent tribal beats, distortion, unique textured noise, and minimal jam with darbuca and tambourine to create an enigmatic, euphoric and eerie sound with exotic madness. .. Limited to 500 copies.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.

Turn On Arab American Radio, Muslimgauze Archive Series volume 34

"Through this release, the music stays on the minimal side, leaning heavily on using a drum machine and minimal Middle Eastern samples and instruments, but like the radio signals only. As I like minimalism and the occasional Muslimgauze release, I immensely enjoyed this."
Vital Weekly number 1365

The relationship between Bryn Jones’ music as Muslimgauze and the track/abum 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 we 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 labelled only “Arab American Radio.” None of them sound particularly radio-esque, although given the simultaneous vastness and ornate focus of Jones’ 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. The last thing you hear at the end of the second LP is one last question from one of the many speakers on this peculiar Muslimgauze radio, echoed away into infinity. We may never have answers, but those questions continue to resonate.