“Tariq Aziz” (2012)
It is quite noisy and distorted, almost unsettling. It is very primitive in both instrumentation and production. There is a lot of noise on the individual instruments. There are also points where the sound just stops, again adding to a feeling of being unsettled. Use of middle eastern beats and the strings also help with the aesthetic. While there is repartition in the track, it sounds like the loops are of varying length. This keeps the track from being as repetitive as it initially presents. This type of metrical dissonance has been written about by Butler (2001), where he states, “A displacement dissonance occurs when an interpretive layer sounds like it is displaced from a metrical layer; the conflicting layer is called the antimetrical layer. Since electronic sound production facilitates this sort of nonalignment, it is not surprising that it is a frequent source of metrical dissonance in EDM.” This dissonance creates variety for the listener and keeps the track from sounding too repetitive. There is also a lot of filtering and glitching over the main drum loop, most likely to also provide variety to the loop.
It is a sparce track in terms of instrumentation. Just the distorted drums along with the strings with a lot of noise. There is not much structure to the track. It starts with the main drum loop, and continues with small variations, mainly with glitches and filtering via EQ with some beats distorted. At the end of the track, it sounds like there is some type of erosion effect to change the bitrate to a lower bit depth before the track stops.
From Discogs we read that Muslimgauze was “influenced by the conflicts and history in the Muslim world” (Discogs, no date). And from Bidoun: “His project began in 1983 as a personal response to the Israeli invasion of Lebanon. ‘Muslimgauze,’ Jones tirelessly explained, ‘are pro-Arab/Palestinian and detest the vile stench of Israel.’” (Clayton, 2009).
However, Muslimgauze, real name Bryn Jones, was not Muslim and had never visited a Muslim country. Jones was a producer from Manchester. Jones reportedly died 37 years of age in 1999 from a rare fungal infection in his blood. Since his death there have been over 50 new releases. This could lead one to believe that some of the later releases are not from the artist. However Jones was known to flood potential collaborators with lots of content in an effort to get collaborations. Maybe these are just coming to light.
Due to the volume of releases and variety of productions released, it is difficult to put his music into a specific genre, however his works are generally described as ethnic electronica. Jones tended to use found recordings, as he never visited a Muslim country, and layered them in rhythmic sections. While most of his works utilise a beat to create the rhythm, repetition of a loop of speech can alter a listeners’ perception of a track making it more musical (Rowland et. al., 2018).
Regardless of the provenance of the work after his death, this track, for me at least, is reminiscent of war and conflict in the middle east. It is the raw and primitive production work that evokes the feel of a country in conflict.
References
Butler, M. (2014) Hearing kaleidoscopes: Embedded grouping dissonance in electronic dance music, twentieth-century music. Available at: https://www.academia.edu/1790394/Hearing_Kaleidoscopes_Embedded_Grouping_Dissonance_in_Electronic_Dance_Music (Accessed: November 13, 2022).
Clayton, J. (2009) Muslin gaze, Bidoun. Available at: https://www.bidoun.org/articles/muslin-gaze (Accessed: November 13, 2022).
Discogs (no date) Muslimgauze, Discogs. Available at: https://www.discogs.com/artist/484-Muslimgauze (Accessed: November 13, 2022).
Rowland, J., Kasdan, A. and Poeppel, D. (2018) There is music in repetition: Looped segments of speech and nonspeech induce the perception of music in a time-dependent manner – psychonomic bulletin & review, SpringerLink. Springer US. Available at: https://link.springer.com/article/10.3758/s13423-018-1527-5 (Accessed: November 13, 2022).