Ayatollah Dollar by Muslimgauze

The plaint of Muslimgauze sounds not simply like a gesture of political empathy but like form of self-mourning: before he died Jones was already navigating some kind of liminal life-death space. Under the volcano of noise eruption is a very clear frailty. Double echo: the always present political 'content' pushes you to take sides; but I always find this music unbearably moving. I am undone by it, it bruises, hurts, tears; it incites, but elicits tears in the process. Ayatollah Dollar is a harsher Muslimgauze: from the scree/scream of 'Tikrit' to the voodoo click of 'Heroin Smuggler', it works according to some secret logic of viral contamination; an umbilical cord between the sacred and the profane; monstrous angels running interference and jabbering propaganda. Perfect Staalplaat package - a perimeter fence, seen through night-sights - and at 30 minutes this offers perfect access for anyone looking for slip routes into Jones' vast corpus.

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