Search - Muslimgauze :: Lo-Fi India Abuse

Muslimgauze in fresh and varied form - all killer, no filler

10/23/1999

(4 out of 5 stars)

"If Muslimgauze needs an introduction, you haven't had your ear to the dirt for too long. Like the sublime archeology that adorns the record sleeve, give thanks that this set has been unearthed.Lo-Fi India Abuse (the title scrawled by Bryn Jones on the DAT master he sent to BSI) shows Muslimgauze in fresh and varied form, focused on a minimalist pallette of hand drums, sine-wave bass, sick distortion, and drop-out dub delays. All the tracks feel live and hands-on; not labored over, but with real staying power nonetheless. The recording and mastering are immaculate, with devastating low end, and tablas so crisp you swear the drummer's four feet in front of you wearing a cloaking device. Some of the tracks are reconfigurations of Systemwide songs, elements of which were torn straight off their Sirius CD. Bryn and BSI have left it to the attentive to determine which tracks are versions, and which are straight up `Gauze.A. Antalya drops you smack in the center of the Souk, a tide of humanity surging to the whistle. Romanie Abuse and Valencia in Flames tear holes in your speakers' mids, as obtusely looped live bass patterns keep you stumbling forward, blacking out and coming to from the deadly delays. Al Souk Dub brings you back to the market, with a bassline so subby you won't even know it's there unless you have 12" or bigger woofers. Catacomb dub flanges the hats and dubs the rhythm until the dub becomes the rhythm, until the void itself is being dubbed - as dope a testament to Bryn's compulsive genius as you'll hear on any release that came before.B. Possibly the baddest track on the disc, Dust of Saqqara drags a glowing meteorite out from under Zoser's step pyramid, cracks it open, and slowly gets the glowing green ooze all over the place. Android Cleaver resurrects Eldridge as a loping automaton blazing like Westworld. Dogon tabla calls the Great Fish God out of the deep with sweet, aquafied keyboard trills, and Nommos' Afterburn sends him back to the Sirius system with rocket fuel burning hot, white, and deafeningly loud.Brush away the sand, put your ears to the cut-glass headphones of the ancients, and leave this place behind. Now."

Not everyone's piece of cake, but eatable

Elle Ackers | Somewhere in time | 02/09/2000

(4 out of 5 stars)

"The editorial reviews and buyer reviews are very precise, but really don't describe this music. (Besides and oud is a string instrument, a ney is a wind instrument.) Okay, imagine a B science fiction movie circa 1950 from the Middle East. That is an apt description of this music. Sometimes the idea of something is better than the execution of something. This is not going to be everyone's piece of cake but it is still eatable."