That Bryn Jones (aka Muslimgauze) died in 1999 of a rare blood disease is a convincing argument for the existence of a higher power. I'm not being callous here, suggesting that the world is better off without him; I'm saying that the escalation of the conflict in Israel, the invasion of Afghanistan, and the current war in the Iraq probably would have collectively driven Jones completely over the edge. Perhaps his death spared him unimaginable suffering.
While he was alive, Jones felt an intense anger at Israel and the United States, and sympathy for the plight of the Arab world generally and Palestinians specifically (he wasn't exactly opposed to terrorism either). Jones' stance was not borne of experience (he never actually visited the Middle East), religion (he was not a Muslim) or community (he didn't know or care what the Islamic world thought of his work). He was simply outraged at the existence of the state of Israel and the West's imperialist policies.
Because Jones was a workaholic, his anger found an outlet in recording, and he was pissed off, indeed: The discography page of his official website lists more than 150 releases since 1982. I didn't look closely to see how many of those are albums proper, but it's a lot. If he were alive today, with everything that's happening, he'd probably be putting out a new album every two hours. The pace would kill him.
Because Muslimgauze was so prolific, new records still appear almost monthly, three years after his death. It's difficult to imagine that one day there simply won't be any more Muslimgauze material in the vaults. Maybe it won't happen in my lifetime. But for now, the new releases keep on coming, and relatively casual fans such as myself can sit back and cherry-pick the good stuff.
Hamas Cinema Gaza Strip contains material Jones recorded in 1998, which wasn't originally released until last year and has now been repressed in a limited edition. No one expects one Muslimgauze release to sound dramatically different from another-- at his pace, he was bound to repeat himself. Rather, Jones' tracks are built from variations of about a dozen distinct and identifiable Muslimgauze styles.
This record can be classified as mostly stripped-down Muslimgauze: generally easy on the noise, with steady, hip-hop-informed beats, and no dub touches or ambient interludes. It also has a lot of what made Muslimgauze interesting. Jones' greatest accomplishment, musically, was his genius with percussion. The sheer power and authority of his drum tracks never fails to impress, and so it is with Hamas Cinema Gaza Strip .
Nobody ever has or will mix a midtempo hip-hop beat with distorted djembe fills like Muslimgauze does here on "Hezbollah Radio Advert". You can tell it's him instantly, with the unnerving blend of the clean (the driving 4/4 bit) and the filthy (the seriously overdriven hand drums). Bits of Arabic dialog, another Muslimgauze signature, buzz randomly over the rhythm. The title track uses a similar combination of sounds, but with loose, improvisational hand percussion and sweeping string samples that sound like they could be ripped from "Kashmir". "Izlamiq Groupe" on the other hand, is slow and druggy, with deep tabla pulses, samples of sitar, and an odd contrast as a pitter-patter of electric shocks dancing on top. These are all prime Muslimgauze tracks.
The record gets more abrasive as it goes on. "Rent a Hookah" is hard, noisy techno with just a few Middle Eastern elements, and the drums in "Balti Utensil", though not particularly fast, inch into the red. Still, Hamas Cinema Gaza Strip is not a particularly punishing Muslimgauze release, so it wouldn't be a bad place to start for the uninitiated. He surely made 50 albums better than this one, and 100 or more worse. The important thing is to dive in somewhere and check it out. No one sounds like Muslimgauze.
