Izlamaphobia

2015 re release of the 1995 first release in the Muslimgauze subscription series, with updated artwork. Edition of 500. Izlamaphobia starts with an aggressive blast, Hudood ordinance. With a rhythm track consisting of extremely tweaked and processed electronic beats and bleeps and only the gentlest of Arabic string instruments deep in the mix to relate things to a more familiar Muslimgauze sound, the song sets the general mood for the rest of Izlamaphobia. This said, Bryn Jones's specific talent was such that even without that, this would still sound like him, his trademark care and obsessiveness in terms of percussion again evident. With a variety of romanticized (some might say stereotypical) song titles like The eternal illusionist of oid Bachdad and Lahore morphine market, Izlamaphobia has two chief artistic themes, if anything. On the one hand, Jones's incorporation of hip-hop and funk beats was never stronger than on Izlamaphobia, providing songs like Gilded madrasa and The public flogger of Lahore with a wickedly fierce kick and drive. On the other, the strained, alien treatments on many of the songs would be right at home on innumerable Warp Records releases of the '90s, with squelching rhythms, un-danceable dance tracks, and, quite unsurprisingly, a desire to avoid expected techno clichés. With these two strains combined on many songs by Jones, the results are wonderfully slamming, strange tracks such as Khadija and fereshta. Not everything is quite so dramatically different from other Muslimgauze releases, with the incorporation of multilayered acoustic percussion cropping up more than once, such as on Hijab muzzle. Everything is just that little bit dirtier in sound, though, and all the more intriguing for it.