I am curious about this book as well!

There is a limited edition box of his older records and the book comes with it. It is expensive (around $300).
cduniverse.com has some of his CDs.
I think I will start with the youtube clips that were posted, see how I like the music. The interviews that were posted may be useful also. I did not know about him before.

Update: after having learned of him here I read some interviews and listened to some of his music. It seems he did everything by hand and used effects extensively. I appreciate his passion for Palestinean rights but I did not like the way he spoke of Israelis. That is a challenges of course, balancing respect for both people. Anyway I was amazed by the music. So I went to Staalplaat.com and ordered all his cds. You can also hear many of his albums in full length here. https://m.youtube.com/results?search...uze+full+album

Which cd is your favorite or would recommend as a starting point? Any in particular that are sample or synth heavy?

I have not listened to enough to do that, and all his stuff is so good. You might check out the youtube link above and listen to the albums and see. Also some of his work here: https://soundcloud.com/staalplaat. He released heavily on this label. Btw, he has said in interviews that he didn't use samplers. He recorded to tape and then went back and reworked and added until he was finished.

Thanks for turning me onto Muslimgauze!!

I youtubed around, and ended up buying mp3s of 6 albums: BLUE MOSQUE; INTIFAXA; KASHMIRI QUEENS; SANDTRAFIKAR; MUSLIMGAUZE (the album); and ZUL’M. I hope I spelled those right.

I’m coming to his music from a slightly different place, since I already listen to Arabic language music—so some of the grooves MG is using are not new to me, they’re styles that have been around. But I like how he uses them, and how he remixes/collages/zooms in on details of that music (and Indian music as well, right?) His stuff doesn’t affect me like anyone else’s, and I have to listen to it in a slightly different state too. 6 Muslimgauze albums are a hell of a playlist, and doesn’t get boring.

Re the OP: I don’t hear synths at all on the albums I got, except for drum machine stuff. The rest is samples. Maybe there are analog synths on his early stuff??

I think @ acreil ’s R8 detective work above is fascinating—I heard some of those R8 card Arabic percussion sounds, and some drumset (also R8?)— and mainly, a whole lot of melodic and spoken voice samples, looped, one shot, processed.

Some writings seem to say that the artist played live drums on his albums—maybe that’s something he said?—[edit:] Yes he did.—but I don’t hear that on the material I got, not unless BJ was a pro on the traditional Arabic drums, someone who really studied that. I think it’s more likely he built loops of other people’s playing.[edit:]He used some 3rd party drum loops, as EgoSchiele posted above. Some of the rhythms, as I said earlier, are generally known and not something he would have invented.

This stuff is amazing. Are there geniuses? Maybe he was one. RIP.

Old thread, I know, but here we go.

We definitely have to keep in mind that Jones was full of shit in his interviews. I say this as a big Muslimgauze fan. But nothing he said is in the least bit reliable, and he even contradicts himself multiple times. This is pretty typical of a lot of musicians who want to obfuscate their process.

I suspect almost all of the material in his songs is "sampled" in one way or another (whether using actual samplers, using other looping hardware, or tape loops, etc). If you listen to enough of it you can hear plenty of examples of imprecise loop lengths and other hallmarks of that process.

Percussion in Muslimgauze kind of falls into a couple distinct categories: obvious drum machines or loops of traditional percussion. People saying he used an R8 are probably correct and I suspect that accounts for almost all of the first category. The latter is probably almost all stuff he found on cassettes or CDs or sample libraries. Claims that he played a lot of it live are almost assuredly bullshit.

I don't buy it for several reasons: 1. playing percussion with that authenticity and skill is no joke, and there's no available evidence I'm aware of that he was ever trained as a percussionist, 2. the rate of his output (he claims sometimes several tracks a day, which seems to be one of his few legit claims and would jive with his overall release rate) does not suggest someone who actually spent much time recording material, which is time consuming if you want to get it right, and 3. there's enough evidence already that he obviously did sample things (a few examples in this thread already where people identified the source samples on a few songs) that give a picture of his process and enough to refute some of his claims. I can maybe buy that he added some live percussion as embellishment to the loops especially on the more ambient tracks. But on the tracks with prominent percussion, I would wager any amount that it's almost all found loops.

As for synths, almost the only real synth I ever hear on his tracks is that intense dub bass synth he uses. I'm sure that's something he played on some mono synth. It almost doesn't matter which one, since it sounds to me like most of the actual quality of it comes from how overdriven it is. IF anything, that's the lingering question for me about his process - how he achieved the overall oomph that he achieved. I'm sure people who said it's mostly him driving either an ADAT or some other medium really hard are probably right. Whatever it is, it's awesome.

Again, I am a longtime fan of his music so I don't want to sound like I'm shitting on it, but if we're talking seriously about his process and gear, I believe we simply can't trust anything he said. In addition to the penchant artists often have for lying about their process, I get the sense he was also probably mentally ill. His obsession with the subject matter and extremist views about a culture with which he had no contact suggest someone who wasn't exactly right in the head. I think he was a production genius but also strongly disassociated from the world. This adds to the case for not taking very much he says seriously.

It’s not polite to speak ill of the dead. You have no idea how he worked, you’re just talking pony. His empathy with people who were (and are) being abused wholesale makes him mentally ill? Why? I do think mossad probably killed him. He died far too young. And I am sure there are elements who want to discredit him after his death too.

Saying I think someone is mentally ill is not an insult. I've known a lot of people who suffered from various kinds of mental illness and the way they talk about the world is revealing. Note that I also never said that his political passion was what makes me think he was mentally ill, so please don't put words in my mouth.
Rather a lot of things he has said in interviews, to me, hints at someone who is either mentally troubled or trying to appear so.

The fact that you think Mossad killed him is an amusing take - I think Mossad has better things to do than take out some obscure English musician who, at the end of the day, was never a major influencer of political opinion anywhere. And while I can respect someone who is passionate about a political cause, I can't reasonably attribute this all to "empathy." Someone who has stated that an entire population of a country is "disgusting" is not someone who I'd say has the defining trait of empathy. Again, this isn't me just guessing and making things up. The clues are there if you read what the man has said. If I said "the entire country of Germany is disgusting and I would never talk to a German" what would that say about me? No one would hear that and think I didn't have a screw loose.

And while it's true I don't have any first-hand insight into how he worked, my speculation is informed by a lot of experience with different ways of making music, electronic and otherwise. Again, if you have enough experience you can make some pretty good judgment calls about how people worked based on available clues. You might think this is pure guesswork but it's not. It's based on years of discernment and considering what the most likely thing is. Could I be wrong? Yeah. I don't think I am though. Nothing I've said should read like an attempt to "discredit" him. I literally say multiple times that I'm a big fan of his work, and saying that someone used samples in their work shouldn't be perceived as an insult anyway.

It sounds like you're projecting quite a lot into what I said, and adding your own dose of crazy to the mix (the Mossad theory is gonna have me chuckling for a few days, thanks for that).

Classic gearslutz opinion



I personally think MG is overrated except few releases but... gosh why some people are speaking out of the asses without even lightest attempt of fact-checking?

I ended up with a couple of his cds and man that was good stuff.totally different like some proto ethnic dubstep shiz.pretty creepy.but the fine production was on point.

You were doing great before that last paragraph.
Like the famous quote goes: "It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society."

Yeah but don’t let it make you sick as well….

You could argue he is not the greatest, but could not argue he is the most prolific… but probably, also the greatest!

Just stumbled upon this song. Great stuff.

Fair enough, I thought I remembered that he had never performed live, but I guess some examples do exist. That said... lol, at your video evidence. One video that's barely even anything because it's so pixelated and the other doesn't even have sound.

It's honestly funny how ****ing triggered you people are by the idea that he could have been mentally ill. It's not even an insult, it's just my assessment from reading/listening to interviews. If you don't agree well... no one cares.