muslimgauze: drugsherpa

The provenance of bonus tracks can often be tangential or suspicious; in this case, it's more like a homecoming. When Bryn Jones turned in the master for what would become 1994's Drugsherpa mini-CD, Staalplaat selected the 20-minute title-track, truly one of Muslimgauze's most distinct and awe-inspiring tracks, to fill the release. The sinuous, doom-haunted "Drugsherpa" still sounds fresh today, but in 1994 it was so far ahead of its time, that the rest of us wouldn't catch up until a decade or more later; only now does it really sound like it has contemporaries. But it wasn't alone on that tape; and with the mini-CD long since sold out, this reissue releases its siblings into the world for the first time. Unlike "Drugsherpa" itself, now restored to its original place as track three on the reissue, the other six tracks on this now 56-minute album are all remixes of other Muslimgauze material. As usual for Jones, those remixes take the songs in all sorts of directions, subtle or otherwise; shorter, longer, backwards, dubbed-out, less dubbed-out, and so on. The result shows anew the infinite variety, multiplicity, and complexity of Jones' work, and functions as a kind of ad hoc compilation of material from several recent-at-the-time Muslimgauze releases as well (plus a remounting of "Gulfwar" from 1987's Abu Nidal). But the darkly brooding "Drugsherpa" itself remains, justly, the center of attention here. Less directly political than much of Jones' work, it builds up to an immense, slow groove until finally shaking itself to pieces in your ears by the end. Muslimgauze is always evocative. With Drugsherpa, Jones practically gives the listeners visions. He always intended these tracks to go together (as shown by the seamless segue into "Jerusalem Knife (Wail Mix)," but in a way Drugsherpa is sui generis, even for Muslimgauze.