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Muslimgauze, "Lazhareem Ul Leper"
This is already the 15th release in Staalplaat's exhaustive Muslimgauze archive series, but it looks like Bryn Jones has not yet run out of minor posthumous surprises to share with the world. Originally recorded in 1995, but never released, Lazhareem Ul Leper is a series of heavy percussion experiments that stylistically fits somewhere between Jones' harsher post-industrial moments and the hypnotically looping ethno-percussion vamps that he was exploring around that same time. The unexpected twist is that it sounds like Bryn flirted with incorporating some IDM influences here as well.
There are two things that make Lazhareem Ul Leper a bit of an unusual Muslimgauze album.The first is that there is not much in the way of mood.My favorite Muslimgauze albums tend to be those infused with a sense of dread or menace, and that element is conspicuously absent here.Leper does not offer a different atmosphere, just lots of ribcage-rattling break beats and insistent Middle Eastern-tinged percussion loops. Bryn's use of field recordings is atypically sparing here, but he thankfully employs them just enough to make it clear that this is still a Muslimgauze album. The second unusual aspect is the prominence of obviously synthetic contemporary dance music textures and Aphex Twin-style inhuman drum fills.In fact, the opening piece ("Aquamareez") sounds like a sputtering volcano of blurting, squiggling laser noises erupting in the middle of a drum circle.Generally, Muslimgauze only sounds either "organic" or "heavily distorted:" it is pretty unexpected to find any overlap with something that would be playing at a dance club. Given Bryn’s work ethic, insular vision,and voluminous output, it is difficult to imagine where he found the time to absorb new influences. My only guess is that a fire or flood must've forced him out of his studio for a couple hours that year.
I am not sure that the laser noises and synth bleeps were always a great idea, but the percussion flurries make a welcome addition to the Muslimgauze sound, especially since Jones managed to "ethnify" them and make them his own.Probably the best use is the machine-gun fill slipped into the fairly straightforward hip-hop beat of"Apricot Zoom Buddha."The fills are bit wilder and more unpredictable in the following piece ("Chaikhana"), but "Apricot" is the album's clear high-water mark, largely due to its dynamic variation and woozy backwards shimmer.The few aberrant songs that completely dispense with the album's percussive focus are also quite likable, if somewhat incidental.I particularly liked the overlapping kalimbas (I think) in "Cayenne Dupatta" and the lurching, laser noise-ravaged drone piece that closes the album ("Karakum Burqa").Neither quite transcends the "one idea equals one song" aesthetic that dominates the album, but they are welcome and inspired oases from the endless groove onslaught.
Jones' devotion to the beat on this album is often pretty single-minded and unwavering, a trait that I find frustrating about many Muslimgauze albums.Bryn certainly had a knack for splicing together very cool and often very complicated grooves, but here it seems that he was often satisfied solely with that, as songs like "Degla Ennour" and "Mezes" don't enhance their beats with much more than a smear of heavily-reverbed color.I don't quite understand what Jones was trying to do here: much of Leper could plausibly be rhythmic sketches that he never got around to fleshing out, or perhaps intermediate versions of finished works that wound up elsewhere (such as on Izlamaphobia).Then again, he may have been deliberately exploring the hypnotic potential of mechanically repeating, unadulterated percussion loops.Regardless, it doesn't work particularly well.A lot of the songs feel like a single groove or melodic fragment looped for an arbitrary amount of time with little progression or change in density.There are a lot of good ideas here, but very few make the leap into good songs.This is not the best place to start for anyone looking to dip their toes into the vast and daunting Muslimgauze oeuvre, but seasoned Muslimgauze fans will certainly find a few new gems to add to the pile.
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