Muslimgauze: IRANAIR INFLIGHT MAGAZINE Reissue

Originally released in 2003. This is a mostly beat-driven album with
little background noise, ambient space, or reverb. There is also no big
emphasis on Middle Eastern sounds, which (and you should be figuring
this out by now) is a frequently occurring theme in Bryn Jones'
politically-driven music. Occasionally, there is some melodic material,
or a touch of the Middle East sprinkled in, but it's played down in
favor of beats that could best be described as very raw and closer to
early Autechre minimalism than something from the World Beat
genre. Hiccupping along, distorted break beats sound like they were once
made from real drums, but Mr. Jones has turned the gain up way too high
and ripped the drums to shreds. Since then, they've been heavily
tweaked, turned into glitches, bloops, and blips. A downbeat gets set,
only for it to sound like someone hit pause on the CD player.
Machine-like loops reminiscent of Krautrock repetitiveness suck me in,
only to be shut off without warning. As the beat finally starts to
seduce me and I realize I could happily listen to the same repetitive
thing for the duration of the CD, the plug gets pulled and the beat is
deprived of oxygen just as it finally proved it could "groove." Each
title is a page in the Iranair inflight magazine. The title of track 3
comes from a passage of a Sunday Times article (October 4, 1998) about Bin Laden's men infiltrating the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir. Iranair Inflight Magazine
was made towards the end of Bryn Jones' life and in addition to
countless others (this man must have recorded about an album a week),
has only recently been released for the first time. Record labels were
simply not able to keep up with the prolific Jones while he was alive.
CD digipack. Limited edition of 700 copies.