Unsurprisingly for an artist as prolific and strident as Bryn Jones was, the flood of material he sent to labels and compatriots was not always carefully categorized. Also, sometimes he would be so eager to release material that if things weren't happening fast enough, he'd just send in another tape. And that circumstance is why the fascinating oddity Mohammad Ali Jinnah exists. Staalplaat has previously released, in 2002, the Muslimgauze album Sarin Israel Nes Ziona (2002). While continuing to sort through and release the material Jones left behind with his death in 1999, the Mohammad Ali Jinnah tape was found to have significant overlap with that now out of print album, but only to a certain extent. Six of the 15 tracks on Mohammad Ali Jinnah match up with material from the earlier tape (which included 20 tracks), but when Jones resubmitted this tape he also included extended mixes of four of the tracks from the original album ("Imam Fainted", "Yousif Water Pipe Habit", "Opulent Maghrebi Meze", and "Indo Muslem Atlas") as well as five entirely new compositions. The result is a fascinating re-setting of some of the music from that under-heard release. Whether Jones preferred one arrangement to the other is sadly lost information, but listeners now can appreciate a wholly new experience with the material herein, even if some of the material itself has been previously released. And the new tracks are fascinating, even by Jones's usual standards, whether they're the grinding, obsessively focused percussion workouts, "For Larger Iran" and "Burnt Pages Of Ali Jinnah Koran", or the cryptically distant likes of "Cold Turkey". Paired with classic tracks like the bass-distorted, Middle Eastern boom bap of "Kurds Eye View" and the furtively head-nodding "Zahir Din, Cabdriver Of Zind", the result is a release unlike anything else in Jones's discography. All tracks written, played and recorded by Muslimgauze. Edition of 700.
Released December 2016 on Staalplaat.
English