muslimgauze: satyajit eye

It has been said that if we mere mortals attempted to write down everything that Mozart ever composed, it would take us 80 years to do so -- but Mozart himself only lived to be 35. Something similar could be said, too, about the work of Bryn Jones - also known as Muslimgauze. Jones died in 1999, at the age of 38 -- but produced an incredible body of work, much of which remains unreleased. From the ultra-creative period that brought us Hamas Arc (1993) and Vote Hezbollah (1993) -- and also the lost album Shekel of Israeli Occupation (the master of which was returned to Jones -- who regarded the peace treaty signed in 1993 by the PLO, the original dedicatees of the album, as a betrayal -- and the music was subsequently erased) -- were the first signs that Jones had a wealth of unreleased material -- so much so, in fact, that Staalplaat decided to give fans a "free" release in exchange for sacrificing a part of the cover of Hamas Arc: if you cut out the insert from the CD cover and sent it in with a blank DAT, you'd eventually have your DAT sent back to you, but now as a free six-song DAT-only release (the severed part of the Hamas Arc cover would become the j-card cover for this new release - named Satyajit Eye -- and please note that xeroxed copies of the original CD inlay were not accepted...) Hamas Arc turned out to be one of the most successful releases from Muslimgauze, and endless amounts of these DATs have been copied. The DAT consisted of three original pieces, and three remixes from Vote Hezbollah; but there were also three pieces that were on the original master which, for reasons we may never know, were not used on the final release. Unsurprisingly enough, Satyajit Eye was eventually bootlegged -- but not until this year. This expanded version, however, completes the whole picture of this album -- showing us the first signs of Jones looking towards Indian music for inspiration; but also with breezy, desert-like rhythms and sounds (such as the intense "Zion Poison" -- which reminds us of O Yuki Conjugate), or the way-out music of the title-track. Satyajit Eye is a mysterious album, full of hidden layers; and evokes a lonely yet warm feeling of sun-covered sand dunes.

Muslimgauze "Satyajit Eye", excerpt #1: Re-mix from „Vote Hezbollah“ by Staalplaat