Deceiver

AMG Review of Deceiver

Ned Raggett
All Music Guide

Starting off with the quite lengthy first title track, which begins as a heavy-stomp monster that either is sampling a John Bonham drum part or is doing its best to sound like it is, then alternates between quieter and louder passages, Deceiver is another excellent entry in the limited-edition release series begun by Izlamaphobia. Like that other double-disc release, which showcased Bryn Jones moving into newer, less familiar sonic realms with his work, Deceiver has Muslimgauze working in extremis on a variety of fronts, if not quite as much (though pretty darned close nonetheless) as the earlier effort. One thing that definitely does carry over from Izlamaphobia is Jones' love for crunching drum and percussion sounds used in immediate, in-your-face approaches. Standouts in this vein, to name just two out of many, include "A Parsee View," one of the sharpest and most danceable things Muslimgauze released, with a massive beat and tight groove accompanied by what sounds like heavily-amplified clapping, and the very untypical "Herod-1," anchored around a pumped-up series of bass synth lines and a swirling, wordless female vocal sample. "Herod-2" takes the bass and gets even crazier with it, with backwards percussion and many strange twists and turns. The full blend of punch and experimentalism which characterized Izlamaphobia does crop up at points here as well, as with "Morsel of Sand," with several interlocked percussion lines, some quite clear and some heavily treated, accompanied only by a flute, and the body-rocking first "Jagdish Masjid of Light," which even has some wah-wah guitar snuck into the funk. The second "Jagdish" is no slouch either, with distortion and sonic overload worthy of Autechre to boot on top of everything else.