Muslimgauze "Fakir Sind" Soleilmoon Recordings SOL 80 CD 1999 (46:30)
Mumbai Vibe Garden (6:48)
Zenana of Ugly Thoughts (8:29)
Memsahib of Gup and Ghee (4:05)
Fakir of Gwalior (4:44)
Let's have more Dagga, Begum (3:34)
The Shikari who Wore no Dhoti (3:23)
Hindu Kush Opium Crop (4:10)
Left Skin of Jaalghazi (3:57)
Why no Dogs in Nizamabad (2:58)
Pink Seerband (4:22)
Muslimgauze is Bryn Jones.
"Fakir Sind" is one of 2 new ltd edition (1000) Muslimgauze cds released in June of this year, the other being "Hand of Fatima". "Fakir Sind" is the type of Muslimgauze album that takes one general theme and explores it for a duration of a disc, this one being 10 tracks and 46+ minutes. Every track has a rumbling, clean dub style bass line. Add to that a varying combination of the following: bizarre bird (?) calls, acoustic hand percussion and tablas, the drone of a Middle Eastern wind or stringed instrument, wailing vocal loops and dialogue snippets. The bird calls and vocals/dialogue can be found on at least half of the album's tracks. Another oft used trick is hacked up audio via delays, the latter half of "Zenana.." being especially fragmented. Nothing here is really distorted/overdriven or annoying, unless of course the bird calls start to get on your nerves. The tempos vary from the slow crawl of "Memsahib.." and "Fakir.." to the rapid-fire hand percussion of "Let's have.." and "Hindu Kush.." and to the upbeat bass and percussion dance of "Left Skin..". Not a great deal of variation in sounds, but plenty of change in speed and feel. Yep, I dig this. The artwork/design for this release is fairly minimal: a 3 panel double sided insert with illustrations by Simona Bortis of a hand/bird with eyeball (which was also released as a ltd edition poster by Soleilmoon), a bleeding hand and a bird. Time to file this one with the other 3 or 4 dozen Muslimgauze discs in my collection ...
Where did I get this cd? - mail order via Soleilmoon Recordings.