Interview with Bryn Jones/Muslimgauze by the VPRO radio station

The complete transcript of a radio portrait and interview with Bryn Jones (Muslimgauze) conducted by Jan Hiddink (VPRO radio), recorded in June 1997 and broadcast shortly after that. That same afternoon Muslimgauze recorded a session at the VPRO, accompanied by Werner Durand (flutes) and Ryan Moore (bass, theremin; then of The Legendary Pink Dots and now Twilight Circus). Jan’s introduction and interludes and the closing announcement were spoken in Dutch. The closing announcement was omitted when the interview was re-broadcast shortly after Bryn passed away.

[music]

Jan Hiddink (JH): Werner Durand played the flute, Ryan Moore played bass and theremin and Bryn Jones played percussion. Bryn Jones is the man behind Muslimgauze. When talking about Muslimgauze, he uses the plural ‘we’, but he’s referring only to himself; Muslimgauze has always been a solo project since the very first releases in 1984. How many albums have been released since then is difficult to say, because it’s an absurdly huge amount. Muslimgauze releases one CD after another, about ten a year for the past few years. One half of them are worth listening to, but the other half suffers from rehashing a single idea and misappropriates 70 minutes of a listener’s life. Bryn Jones has long been quite unknown himself, an anonymous character behind a well-known project, Muslimgauze. He seldom gives interviews and may even avoid them entirely from now on, because never before have I had such a grumpy person sitting opposite me for an interview. Bryn Jones has no idea what he’s talking about, looks at the world from a socially isolated position and thinks no one likes him. And once he starts talking you can understand why. Bryn Jones makes beautiful music and has benefitted this afternoon from highly skilled session musicians, but when he speaks, he’s an embarrassment. And it all starts with the use of the word ‘we’, whereas this is clearly a solo project.

Bryn Jones (BJ): I say ‘we’ because it’s put forward as a group; Muslimgauze is put forward as a group, but it’s just me. I always say ‘we’.

JH: Yeah. But when was it that you started the group?

BJ: Erm… ’84… something like that. The audience has been shrinking… progressively. We’re despised, you know, more people despise us than like us, so…

JH: Why?

BJ: Good question, good question. For every good review there’s at least seven or eight bad ones… so… so it has always been. But I like it; it’s good.

JH: But were you yourself in for, say, the amount of releases of the last years, which is quite a lot, compared to…

BJ: Should be more releases…

JH: That’s what you think?

BJ: Yeah.

JH: Why? What do you think is…?

BJ: We record so much material. There’s so much material not released. At least eight or nine a year never come out.

JH: You mean there are eight or nine CDs a year that aren’t released?

BJ: (mumbles) Maybe more.

JH: But how then do you work? When is something finished for you?

BJ: Work’s constant. All the time. Just ideas. If an idea isn’t put down I tend to find it affects the next idea coming along, so it’s… constant. Can’t help finishing it.

[music]

JH: That was live last June in a unique one-off line-up. Almost from the beginning Muslimgauze’s music has been dedicated exclusively to the Palestinian cause, to the occupied land that should be returned to them. Bryn Jones started his political mission when Israel invaded Lebanon in the ’80s. Muslimgauze is an unabashedly pro-Palestinian mouthpiece who makes no concessions, sometimes openly flirting with terrorist organisations in the Middle East. Often his CD covers depict images from Arabic culture, like mosques or mosaics, but there is also a foldout that seems to glorify the Iran of Ayatollah Khomeini. Politics is Bryn Jones’s primary concern; without politics there is no Muslimgauze music. But at the same time it’s nothing more or less than what he has thought up in his attic – he still lives with his parents in Manchester. Bryn Jones has no Arab friends, doesn’t correspond with organisations in the Middle East, has never been there, doesn’t want to go there, doesn’t talk or discuss it with friends in Manchester, yet nevertheless still feels unappreciated, exploited and misunderstood. The story of an eccentric who could just as easily have chosen as his cause the Basques, the Catholics in Northern Ireland, or the blacks in South Africa.

BJ: The main influence on Muslimgauze is the Palestinian situation. Erm… it was the Israeli invasion of Lebanon really. Before that it was just pure experimental music but at that point my interest was aroused in what was happening out there. It was so important. Yeah… I just find it so important. Some people latch onto South Africa or other places; for me it was just the Middle East... so important. Other people will probably say it’s not important, but I do… I think it is.

JH: Are you also in contact with organisations over there, or here?

BJ: No. Not into it… if they pat us on the back or anything like that. It’s just… it’s just what inspires me… A political situation or idea comes first, making you sit down and you can think of, like, Yasser Arafat, or... and then you get an idea. It comes first, the political… the politics and then the music. And I couldn’t give a damn if it sells or not, you know… Where I am is irrelevant really, because I’d do it no matter where I lived really. I just happen to be a Mancunian. I could easily be a Greek or whatever. But I wouldn’t go to Palestine while it’s occupied… no, certainly not, no. The point is that it is occupied. Maybe it’s not important to you or… to the Palestinians it will be important. It’s the main influence on Muslimgauze, yeah, is the Palestinian situation.

[music]

JH: That was live music by Muslimgauze. The music, also on CD, has several styles, which is not so surprising, considering the vast number of releases. It’s always percussive and rhythmic, but it can have racing, relentless dance beats as well as more subtle percussive exercises. Where Muslimgauze excels is in the authenticity his music seems to have. It’s as if Bryn Jones stood with a recording device in the streets of Baghdad. But he’s never been there. Jones rips it from whatever he can lay his hands on, and he does it surprisingly well; better than all the techies of now, who, with their half-hearted attempts to incorporate Arabic music in their work, are completely on the wrong track. This isn’t so strange, because what is for those musicians a deliberate strategy or a creative business plan, is for Bryn Jones it’s an everyday occurrence. This is what you can expect from the socially disturbed: for them it’s normal, nothing out of the ordinary. Muslimgauze:

BJ: It’s just instinct… you know whether something works or not, hopefully. Just play something… and then you just work with it. You take different things and see if they gel together. If they don’t, use something else. You have to use a specific thing… yeah. Well, they are usually from film or cassettes, radio, whatever… and you just keep a store and then you… whatever the piece of music, you pull it out and use it. Whatever suits… But I mean... we’ve been doing it for years, so we’ve got quite a lot.

JH: ‘We’ is you yourself?

BJ: Well, I say ‘we’ because it’s put forward as a group. Muslimgauze is put forward as a group, but it’s just me.

Radio station announcer: And those were the improvised sounds of Muslimgauze. Played live in the VPRO studios by a unique line up, in this case a trio led by the somewhat cocky Bryn Jones, who normally operates solo as Muslimgauze. Berrie Kamer and Jan Hiddink hope to never meet him again.

This transcript was taken from Appendix 4 of the book 'This Is Supposed To Be A Record Label' by Frans de Waard (ed. This was a most enjoyable read, for me. Brought back so many memories of working with Staalplaat, back in the "day".)