E.g Oblique Graph

Featuring: Muslimgauze

Vinyl-on-demand presents the definitive excavation of Bryn Jones' formative years with Complete Oblique 1980-1983, a comprehensive 7LP/7CD box set that collects every recording from the pre-Muslimgauze era. This extraordinary archaeological document captures one of experimental music's most prolific figures in the crucial period before his transformation into the underground legend we know today. Between 1980 and 1983, working under the moniker E.g Oblique Graph, Jones was assembling what would become one of experimental music's most singular vocabularies through minimal electronic pieces built from synths and tape manipulations. This collection gathers all three impossible-to-find cassettes originally released on "Kinematograph Tapes" (Extended Play, Piano Room, Inhalt) plus the rare 7" Triptych for Bourbonese Qualk's "Recloose Organization."

Complete Oblique reveals material that bears little resemblance to trademark Muslimgauze. Instead of the dub-heavy rhythms and Middle Eastern influences that would define his later work, these recordings present an artist enthusiastically experimenting with sounds and technology, creating music that is crude yet surprisingly varied and very much of its early '80s moment. The opening Fall Into Glass presents a bleepy reverbed melody with classical suggestions, while Merge develops into darker experimental territory with voices underscored by developing swirling tones. What's most startling is the appearance of icy melodies and loads of ghostly space in these recordings, placing them closer to the experimental strategies of Throbbing Gristle and Cabaret Voltaire than future Muslimgauze releases. Much of the material explores the same post-industrial landscape that Zoviet France, Nurse With Wound, Einstürzende Neubauten, and SPK were simultaneously mapping, while drawing from the systematic alienation techniques pioneered by Neu! and La Düsseldorf.

The collection encompasses everything from the eerie Choir-Screen with its spooky haunted music from almost voice-sounds which sweep and swirl ethereally, to the monumental 21-minute Piano Room - a complex collage that anticipates the systematic tape manipulation techniques of Jones' future work. You can feel the influence of Chris Watson-period Cabaret Voltaire, the glacial repetitions of Cluster, and the ritual minimalism of Conrad Schnitzler. Most crucially, Complete Oblique documents the emergence of Jones' signature approach to political titling. Tracks like Islamic Koran In Camera Dome and Rapid White Flag In Snapshot Blur appear precisely as Israel's 1982 invasion of Lebanon occurs, marking the paradigm shift that would define his future work. This is where those vaguely poetic, evocative titles referencing political turmoil paired with hypnotic minimalist electronics first emerge - an aesthetic vocabulary that echoes Laibach's concrete interventions while anticipating the systematic approach that would later inspire artists like Vatican Shadow.

Despite being his earliest releases, these four recordings are also Jones' most challenging and uncompromising - quite an accomplishment in a discography nearly 400 albums deep. Complete Oblique functions as more than historical curiosity; it serves as a masterclass in how artistic identity crystallizes through apparent failure and successful accident in equal measure.