Narcotic by Muslimgauze

This is a very clean recording compared to a lot of the later recordings. It's crystal clear. It's also quite accessible to the uninitiated in the huge world of Muslimgauze and would be a good starting point for those with an interest who have no idea where to begin.

Although Muslimgauze compositions are for the most part instrumental (electronic), there is a definite message behind the work. If you delve at all into the catalogue of work that was produced in such a short time, you'll find that almost all of the releases have some sort of middle-eastern theme, usually one of a political nature. Although I'm by no means an expert in the music of Muslimgauze, all the work I've heard definitely has a message behind it. While it's difficult to sometimes convey a political message through songs with lyrics (let along music without them), Muslimgauze manages to do it well, whether it's attacking the establishment with industrial-edged harder tracks, or identifying with an oppressor through a moving ambient track.

As an album, Narcotic does these above things and more. The opening track "Medina Flight" bangs on with a metallic sounding looped drum track that blares with distortion at some points while background voices chant out vocals nearly throughout. The track is flavored with other harsh sounds and even a few woodwind sounding instruments before subsequently breaking down and starting back in several times. "Believers of the Blind Sheikh" is a 10-minute middle-eastern sounding dub track sprinkled with live drum sounds and more occasional vocal samples of unknown conversation. "Saddams Children" leans more toward traditional instruments, but one can hear the gurgle of electronics lightly in the background.

The instrumentation of the album is amazing. When I first started seeing that Muslimgauze released so many albums in such a short amount of time, I naturally thought that the quality might fall suspect, but Narcotic is a solid piece of work that covers quite a chunk of the electronic music spectrum, although a lot of the rhythms tend to fall on a little harder side. It manages to blend ethnic and electronic sounds into quite an interesting mix. I don't know enough of the politics to know whether it succeeds on a political level or not, but I guess it's probably the point of the disc to make me want to learn.

Muslimgauze occupied a strange place in the musical world. He was a powerful, prolific innovator, releasing albums that were alternately beautiful and visceral, full of ambient electronics, polyrhythmic drumming and all kinds of voices and sound effects. The recordings earned him a devoted following in underground, experimental and industrial music circles worldwide.

The New York Times 1999