Composed in Manchester in December 1995, just three years before his unexpected death at the young age of 38, "Alms for Iraq" doesn't come out on Staalplaat (as frequent readers of Chain D.L.K. might expect), but for the American outlet Soleimoon recordings (closely related to the Dutch label). Bryn Jones' 161st (!!!) album features 75 minutes and 26 tracks of mostly rhythmical-oriented material impregnated of electronics in the form of vibe, but also distortions, filter sweeps and choice of sounds for its repetitive patterns. The entire nature of this record is based around the stop'n'go of these repeating grooves and on the tricky misleading lo-fi abberations of dimming the volume of 20-30 dB's for brief periods of time to make it louder immediately after; from time to time "Alms for Iraq" sounds almost like a minimal glitch-electronics record, but chances are what is being conceived as such is nothing but what you are about to hear a lot louder a minute later (this might be a good time to warn listeners about the deceiving volume of the first 5-10 seconds of the record - don't be fooled or your ears might pay the price!). When the silence breaks the beats take over, sometimes even in the form of piercing noise loops. "Alsm for Iraq" is not monotonous. Instead its dynamic properties shed light on what maybe is/was Muslimgauze's production's most challenging and ground-breaking side. Of course your (dare I say) "average" Middle-Eastern percussion still find a way to sneak into and among the tracks, but the the electro-beat meets rhtyhm-noise meets middle-eastern grooves approach of this record is definitely among my favourite ones, not to mention the outstanding 6 panel A5-sized folding full colour digipack-style packaging with quotes, sleeve notes and beautiful pictures and art work. One of the best Muslimgauze records in a while, maybe.