Muslimgauze - Mullah Said 2xLP

$33.98

First vinyl edition, originally released on CD in 1998. Those not familiar with style of Manchester's Bryn Jones (aka Muslimgauze) will listen slack-jawed at the shear anticipatory nature of his sound collage. The six lengthy tracks on Mullah Said are based on hypnotic and somewhat menacing grooves with a repetitive dub bass beat, waves of Middle Eastern strings and voices, layers of building hand percussion. Each track is a respective, but the washes of sound/percussion come and go often creating a sense of motion and change. All of the tracks are similar and even share elements. Mid-East tension is so accurately captured through the use of the regions instrumentation (especially percussion), sinister electronics, samples of men chanting, women crying, sounds culled from the horrors of war and occasional angry distortion that the listener will be transported to the belly of the beast.

Mullah Said displays two aspects of the work of Muslimgauze. Firstly, musically, it is in the delightful drifting ambient vein. The percussion is mainly acoustic hand drums and the trademark shimmering string sound heard on a number of releases is much in evidence, rhythms are generally slower, there are lots of samples of people speaking in conversation, markets wherever. "Mullah Said" opens the disc with the lovely mix of these sounds. "Every Grain Of Palestine Sand" continues the mood, with a slightly faster tempo, and more emphasis on the beat. But it soon locks into a mesmeric lassitude as various effects echo or smear the sounds, drums come in for short moments, and different string sounds join the play. "Muslims Die India" follows the mood though the voices seem darker and sadder. And then comes "Every Grain Of Palestinian Sand" followed by "Muslims Die India". Yes that is not a typo, these tracks are repeated. Muslimgauze's trend is to remix himself. Prime Muslimgauze Middle Eastern ambience. Recorded at the Abraham Mosque, Manchester. Engineered by John Delf.