MUSLIMGAUZE

Hammer & Sickle

Genre: ELECTRONIC, INDUSTRIAL / WAVE / ELECTRO

Boomkat Product Review:

First physical reissue (outside of that epic VOD box set) of Muslimgauze’s ground zero 7” debut of 1983, newly restored by Radboud Mens, remastered by Rashad Becker, and clad in new artwork by his archivists at Staalplaat.

In 1982, Salford’s Bryn Jones embarked on a legendary artistic arc as E.g Oblique Graph, a short-lived DIY project born in the shadows of post-industrial music, that would give way to his prolific Muslimgauze alias the following year with ‘Hammer & Sickle’. Sharing distinct aesthetic similarities forged in his initial project, Muslimgauze became Jones’ main vehicle for the next 17 years, until his untimely passing in 1999.

The seeds of a legendary, inspirational, and singular catalogue now spanning over 300 releases (and counting) are contained and preserved in this 7”, with four arrangements of drily skeletal percussion rent in spectral FX that would become his hallmark, and prompt other notables such as Shackleton (whose debut 7” was also presented in monochrome black sleeve, like the OG of this one) to action further down the line.

With the kitchen sink pan-slosh-pitching LinnDrum of ‘Hammer & Sickle’, and the reverberating tattoo of ‘Fear of Gadaffi, Nettle Cloth, Baize Tents’ Muslimgauze outlined his fascinations with the culture and politics of the Arabic Middle East and North Africa; a region which he would never visit in his lifetime, but whose people populated his slice of North Manchester, working in local mills, factories, and cafes, as well as the Abraham Mosque he used as a recording studio in the years that followed.

In a sea of never-ending Muslimgauze reissues, it's a real slice of history this one.

7" (4)