Citadel & Zul'm

The following appeared on Transition.

Night & Day had the good idea (belated evidence of their adventurous spirit) of adding Extreme to their list of distributed labels. All of a sudden, the musical jihad of Muslimgauze, that strange entity from Manchester, found itself classified as "Ambient" in the middle of their esoteric catalogue.

At the hearts of Zul'm and Citadel, two masterpieces of Middle Eastern electronic environments are landscapes that flow into one another, pulling the listener into a pleasant but unsettling digital trance where bewildering tracks explode in myriad bursts of percussion, looped cries, and ecstatic mortal wails. The influences intersect: European, Indian, Persian and Middle Eastern combine with loops and samples, keyboards, flute, or the voice of a muezzin, into a progressively more hypnotic mix. Muslimgauze and its sublime polyrhythms transport us far away, very far away, from the large, polluted industrial city where they were created.

A strange vision of Islam. Between Can and the Islamic revival, between Krautrock and oriental mysticism, between industrial and world music.

You'll find it on Extreme (the Australian label devoted to ambient and experimental music such as Soma, Paul Schütze, Mo Boma) - the mysterious and magnificent albums of Muslimgauze.

review by Mx
the review appeared in Transition
translation by Ezra Ereckson

see also Blue Mosque & Citadel, Citadel, Citadel & Infidel & Zul'm

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Citadel Citadel (promo) Zul'm

September 4, 2010