Muslimgauze - Chasing The Shadow Of Bryn Jones

Muslimgauze - Chasing The Shadow Of Bryn Jones (Vinyl-On-Demand 10xLP+Hbk+CD+Poster)

If your memories of Muslimgauze, like mine, are a little clouded by Manchester murk and mist, then consider the opinion of sound engineer Rashad Becker. from Berlin's Dubplates & Mastering. According to Ibrahim Khider's rather extraordinary 208 page book, included in this box set, Becker uses Muslimgauze CDs as a kind of gold standard against which to measure other studio recordings, or check a PA system. To quote Geert-Jan Hobijn of the Staalplaat label, Muslimgauze "put certain frequencies in the music, high level, low level, just for high end people as a sort of secret note. Only if you have high end equipment can you hear it... That's a typical Bryn joke." Muslimgauze was Bryn Jones from Swinton, north west of Manchester, who never had any money, "a weedy guy in sandals", who would eat up a salad left behind on a cafe table. Until his premature death in 1999, aged 38, he lived with his parents, who had no idea what he was up to. Jones's father Allan tells Khider he is looking forward to reading the book, in the hope of understanding the son who was a mystery to him.

In 1987 Jones recorded an interview for Roger Richards of Extreme Records (released in 2007 as Bryn Jones Speaks). We hear a gentle, thoughtful Mancunian voice, as Jones carefully reads out and then answers each question about his work and ideals, a model of sweet reasonableness. On his politics: "People can listen to a piece of music, see the title, wonder about the title. Investigate that area. Whether people do this I have no idea." But this was Jones inside his narrow comfort zone, in his bedroom, no one else around. talking about his music. Outside this zone, he was obsessive to the point of eccentricity. Phone calls were laden with silence, social skills were absent and the single topic of conversation was his own music. After a show he simply wanted to get home and work some more. A passionate concern with Middle Eastern politics, particularly the suffering of Palestinians, was what drove him. His loathing for Israel strayed into a controversial area, namely is anti-Zionism equivalent to anti-Semitism? On the surface calm and likeable, if blunt and taciturn, he was an artist driven primarily by anger.

Khider is from Toronto, with family background in the former Yugoslavia, His book is scrappily written, not particularly elegant, and a quick polish by an editor might have removed blunders like equating the Arts Council with the British Council. But it's a biography by a passionate, intelligent fan, and it works because Khider lets you hear the voices of everyone who worked with Jones. Starting with Simon Crab from the group Bourbonese Qualk, you get Charles Powne of the Soleilmoon label, Andrew Hulme of 0 Yuki Conjugate, Satoshi Morita in Japan, The Cutting Rooms' sound engineer John Delf, and several others. Bowled over by the music of Muslimgauze, they wanted to help Jones release more, and he staggered them with his prodigious work rate. Steven Wilson from Porcupine Tree sought him out in a Manchester pub: "He was very pleasant... He looked like he had never been out of the house... He actually showed me a cassette and said, 'Look, this is an album I've just recorded for Staalplaat'.. .He would literally be making an album a day. sometimes he would be producing double CDs, triple CDs and box sets in the space of a few days."

Khider turns out to be Jones's ideal listener. the guy who loves the music so much he sets off to investigate what titles such as "The Divine Cause" and "Hammer & Sickle" might signify. He sketches in the political background. events in the Middle East that were firing up Jones's synapses on a daily basis. He travels around Europe meeting his interviewees, including Jones's family. He photographs the spectacularly banal view from Jones's bedroom, and the Swinton public library. More excitingly, the book contains early visual art, including a dada and poetry fanzine called Facsimile that Jones included with his first LP, 1983's Kabul. Khider visits Egypt too, and loves the sound of weddings or shop openings: "It was amidst the throngs and automobile traffic. Quran recitations and endless music, where I felt as I was part of a vast, never-ending Muslimgauze track." Jones never wont there, but in Khider's ears suddenly Egypt became his music.

This lavish box set focuses tightly on Jones's early recordings. commencing with Opaques and Kabul from 1983, and Hunting Out With An Aerial Eye and Buddhist On Fire from 1984. It's surprisingly upbeat, though these jerky synths and drum machines haven't aged well. But gradually you can hear Jones figuring out his métier, and the hit rate rises. He himself claimed to have things sorted out by 1986's Hajj, but there are powerful tracks well before that for - displays of his remarkable talent for drama, collaging percussion and sampled elements together with a relentless, often high pitched streak of sound — a great aural metaphor for God's avenging wind. The ten LP set concludes with 1988's The Rape Of Palestine. and by now the music is cooler and harder. Bonus tracks, mostly from cassette compilations, are scattered throughout these LPs. Of course ten albums barely tickles the tip of the Muslimgauze iceberg, as you can see from the fabulous poster, displaying hundred of album covers continuing to the present day. The book, which can be purchased separately from the LP set, contains a 70 minute CD of mainly 1990s tracks, when dub basslines were often pumping beneath Muslimgauze's threatening atmospheres. From a playful, dainty track like "Suttee" (1997), a line can be drawn to the contemporary work of the Lebanese musician Raed Yassin and his inspired, witty turntablism on The New Album. Yassin spins classic Arabic vinyl; it's the same music Jones loved, except that Yassin grew up surrounded by it.

Khider takes you closer into Jones's world than you would have ever thought possible, yet he concludes (as maybe a biographer should) that his subject remains a mystery. Muslimgauze music is a kind of theatre: Jones lived in a tiny bubble, from where he furiously remade the world, again and again, creating stages on which justice might prevail.

Article by Clive Bell
This article originally appeared in The Wire Issue 365 (July, 2014)