Bryn Jones was prolific. Before his death in 1999 at the age of 37, he'd released over 60 original albums, the majority under the name Muslimgauze. The name belies his preoccupation with the struggle of the Palestinian people, later to encompass conflicts in the wider Muslim world - Chechnya, Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq and so on and so forth.

John Bush for AllMusic wrote earlier this year "Jones' blend of found-sound Middle Eastern atmospheres with heavily phased drones and colliding rhythm programs were among the most startling and unique in the noise underground."

Despite the unique handicap of death - a rare fungal infection in his blood the cause - he continues to be prolific as he left behind huge volumes of work, now curated by his nephew Gareth Jones. The latest release is Deceiver vol 3 & 4.

The original Deceiver, released in 1996, was one of the first as Jones steered to a more abrasive, noisier sound. Now a third volume and the addition of the last tapes from the recording of that album are out. We feature here the opening track, 100 Great Turks, a multi-faceted melange of distorted beats.

The original two-disc Deceiver from 1996 is a seminal release in Bryn Jones’ sprawling discography, one of the first major ones to really pivot into the noisier/more abrasive side of Jones’ sound as Muslimgauze. From its epic, vinyl-side-long title track down to terse, rhythmic snippets like “A Parsee View,” Deceiver set out many of the avenues that Muslimgauze would continue to explore before Jones’ death in 1999. Since then, Staalplaat has continued to release the massive backlog of Jones’ work, with the nine-disc set Box of Silk and Dogs seeing the release of a third volume of Deceiver. Now, for the first time that third volume gets a standalone release, paired with the last of the Deceiver tapes. From the brutally curtailed loops and distorted beats of “100 Great Turks” to the hypnotically layered percussion and voice duet of “Opulent Baku Cube” to the oddly funky broken beat of “Maharajaganjinna,” volume 3 of Deceiver remains an essential listen, one that time has only rendered more contemporary. On this two-disc reissue it is accompanied by the 11 unused remixes that make up Deceiver vol 4. The second disc here features several intriguing shorter mixes of “Deceiver” itself that emphasize different sides of the track’s sound, as well as several other mixes that take Jones’ sound in fascinating new directions. The burbling fourth mix sounds like nothing less than the cousin of some of Astral Social Club’s friendlier material, and several tracks such as the seventh mix are so quiet and patient they’re the closest Muslimgauze ever came to ambient music. The combination makes for a fitting companion to the original Deceiver and a surprisingly good introduction to Jones’ work: volume 3 boasts some stellar examples of one of Jones’ primary styles as Muslimgauze, and volume 4 gives the curious listener some idea of just how wide-ranging his work could be.

Get it now from Staalplat Records