Tandoor Dog - Muslimgauze (1998)

There was a time when I was pretty good at finding just about any music I wanted and downloading it. I went through kind of a “collector phase” where I just liked the challenge of finding an artist’s whole discography, even if i already owned a lot of it or never really listened to it. The more obscure the artist, and the more complex the discography, the greater the challenge. It was in that collector context that i discovered Muslimgauze. But even though I didn’t get into him because of the music initially, I was very taken with that music.

Muslimgauze was a guy from Manchester named Bryn who, according to the bio that gets posted everywhere, was not a muslim and never visited the middle east. But from the early 80s to his death in 1999, he released hundreds of hours of music that was themed on muslim culture and its struggle against the west.

His music varied wildly over time, and even from one release to the next. If you just put a random Muslimgauze record on, you might get sound collage with sounds from arab markets, or pure industrial noise, or minimalism, or trance, or ambient. He made enough music that he kept two different labels busy releasing his stuff, and they each got enough material to keep releasing music for years after he died. (There are around 200 releases on his discogs page; keep in mind that he only recorded as Muslimgauze for about 16 years)

Tandoor Dog is more in the minimalist drum and bass category. It was originally released in a 4-LP box set along with several other things, but this release has been packaged as just the one hour of music. Some of his music is raw and confrontational, but this is much more nuanced and well-executed. Repeating bass grooves and percussion loops build a spell and keep you in it.