{"title":"Staalplaat","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eStaalplaat is a label for sound artists, offering a diverse range of music and services. Founded by Geert-Jan Hobijn, it has grown into an organization network with a music label, e-zine, radioprogram, shop, and mail order and distribution company. One of Staalplaat's notable collaborations is the Mort Aux Vaches series with the national Dutch radio VPRO. Staalplaat organizes events and was a co-founder of the NL Centre in Amsterdam during the 1980s. After being based in Amsterdam for many years, Staalplaat relocated to Berlin in 2004.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eStaalplaat has a rich history of organizing concerts and releasing them on tape through their NL-Documentatieserie series. These recordings are denoted by the ST 00X catalog numbers, derived from Staaltape - as the label was known back then.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eIn addition to its own endeavors, Staalplaat had a sister company called Soleilmoon Recordings based in the USA. Both companies distributed each other's releases in their respective home countries until they parted ways in 2000 following the passing of Muslimgauze.\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"iranair-inflight-magazine","title":"Iranair Inflight Magazine","description":"\u003cp\u003eBehind a false plaster and mud partition covered with posters declaring Muslims are being massacred by the forces of imperialism, Ghulam, a tall bearded youth whispers instructions into a radio set using code words from the Koran. \u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Staalplaat","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":50435719954763,"sku":"1021102","price":15.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/a038839e-8f79-44a4-9b4c-36f82a2fb9e6_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1726906759"},{"product_id":"hamas-cinema-gaza-strip","title":"Hamas Cinema Gaza Strip","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eHamas Cinema Gaza Strip\u003c\/em\u003e is one of Muslimgauze’s most cohesive and sonically refined releases. With a more cinematic approach than previous works, the album weaves sparse, percussive rhythms with field recordings, sampled dialogue, and ambient textures to create an immersive and politically charged soundscape.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eEngineered in part by longtime collaborator John Delf, the production is notably polished. The title track is a standout—blending live drumming, reverberating strings, and distant animal calls into a hypnotic, mystical composition. Elsewhere, tracks drift into ambient-dub territory, recalling 'Gun Aramaic', with 'Jerusalem Artichoke' injecting a burst of raw energy. Only 'Rent a Hookah' feels overly abrasive compared to the album’s otherwise nuanced textures.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThroughout, Muslimgauze fuses minimal kick\/snare percussion with Arabic and Indian string instruments, Arabic voice samples, spoken English, and ambient street noise. Echoes and delays lend a subtle dub character, while occasional deep basslines and whispered vocals add a haunting, electronic edge.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eComposed less than a year before Bryn Jones’s passing, \u003cem\u003eHamas Cinema Gaza Strip\u003c\/em\u003e reflects both the harshness and emotional depth of his engagement.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Staalplaat","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":52906407461195,"sku":"R0776-5925","price":21.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/0d98fbde-dce4-d8ef-8517-341a83492b16.png?v=1752573804"},{"product_id":"no-human-rights-for-arabs-in-israel","title":"No Human Rights for Arabs in Israel","description":"\u003cp\u003eIn a not-uncommon turn for Muslimgauze, Staalplaat received two DATs with the same title but different content—overlapping in places, but distinct enough to merit this release as a double CD. The provocative title, in line with Bryn Jones’s politically charged aesthetic, frames an album that remains as confrontational and evocative as ever.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBlending atmospheric electronics, techno-influenced loops, and distorted textures, this is one of Muslimgauze’s more rhythmically relentless works. It recalls early ’80s industrial-funk hybrids, with touches of Psychic TV, Bootsy Collins, and dubby grit woven into its fabric. The »Refugee« tracks lean into raw, metallic tension, while the »Teargas« pieces offer more structured beats and voice samples that channel protest through sound. The closing 20-minute track moves from hypnotic rhythm to ambient dissolution, allowing the album to fade into abstraction.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA powerful and focused release, it stands tall in Muslimgauze’s vast catalogue—both politically potent and musically uncompromising.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Staalplaat","offers":[{"title":"2CD","offer_id":52931343057227,"sku":"R2230-6967","price":26.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/0ba249b6-0dfe-c011-e634-92ac9cfdc4d9.jpg?v=1752755583"},{"product_id":"the-organ-is-the-world-s-greatest-synthesizer","title":"The Organ is the World’s Greatest Synthesizer","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cmeta charset=\"UTF-8\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eFor over six decades, Charlemagne Palestine (b. 1947, New York) has been a pioneering composer, performer, and multimedia artist, celebrated for his ecstatic sonic explorations and ritualistic, metaphysical performances. Emerging from the cross-disciplinary New York art scene of the 1960s and ’70s, he helped shape a heretical edge of minimalism alongside figures like Conrad, Riley, Niblock, and Glass. Trained as a Jewish cantor and later as the carillonneur at St. Thomas Church, Palestine cultivated a deep fascination with resonance and overtone—an obsession that evolved through his use of percussion, early synthesizers, and monumental piano works, influencing artists from John Cale to Nick Cave\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAnimated by a spirit of ecstatic play and what he calls his \"meschugge\" (Yiddish for 'crazy') sensibility, Palestine’s universe blends the sacred and the absurd, filled with soft toys, ritual gestures, and immersive sound environments. Rejecting the »minimalist« label in favor of a maximalist, 'spontanimalist' approach, he creates long-form, resonant performances that transform spaces into vibrating, living organisms—opening portals into the nature of time, sound, and devotion.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn the same vein, the aptly titled live record \u003cem\u003eThe Organ is the World’s Greatest Synthesizer \u003c\/em\u003e– performed during the Sonic Acts Festival at Amsterdam’s Oude Kerk in 2025, and taking its title and cover art from a drawing realized by Palestine himself during the concert – adds to his opaque yet vibrant personal mythology and intimate transcendence, marking a return to the Staalplaat catalog after \u003cem\u003eFffroggssichorddd\u003c\/em\u003e (2020) and \u003cem\u003eMusic for Big Ears\u003c\/em\u003e (2001).\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBeginning with a resonating bell and his falsetto overtone singing, then surrendering to the endless, wild soundscapes of tone-feeling and beat frequencies generated by the church’s organ, across 40+ minutes, single sound sources evolve into clusters, entangle fully with one another, and establish their own spatial existence and aural architectures. We witness the traces of something that can be described as a perpetual performance, a test for the ever-changing interaction between artist, instrument, space and, ultimately, us.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSince Palestine has always defined his execution as a form of anti-composition - of simply \"being in the music\" as if inhabiting a space - the true power of \u003cem\u003eThe Organ is the World’s Greatest Synthesize\u003c\/em\u003er lies in encapsulating a moment of Palestine’s practice in its most authentic, live dimension. Sound becomes at once subtle substance and strange telluric force, animating physical forms from some unknown channel beyond and within, accessible only through our sensorium. The point in this liminal temple of tone, timbre and frequency is not to learn anything but to simply enter. Palestine earns once again his self-given title of contemporary shaman by keeping this sonic portal open, allowing us to witness and make it last.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Staalplaat","offers":[{"title":"LP - Black","offer_id":56263185334603,"sku":"R2042-1774","price":37.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/b66897af-48c1-7021-5457-ccb3eae37d01.jpg?v=1767955258"},{"product_id":"single-two","title":"Single #Two","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cmeta charset=\"UTF-8\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eSingle #Two offers another bite-sized portion of Muslimgauze. This one almost falls into traditional A-side\/B-side territory, with side A containing a single buzzy, frenetic track just over 3 minutes in length. Densely looped percussion, vocal sample, and fuzzy keyboards meld together into a blurry rush.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThe side B is longer, more chill, and less immediate; still utilizing the same ingredients but here spaced out, with the sampled singing only coming to prominence a few minutes in. If the first might provoke a twitch response, the second seems calibrated more for head-nodding.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Staalplaat","offers":[{"title":"7\" - Black","offer_id":56389002395979,"sku":"R8318-4646","price":23.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/fd14b1c6-354a-6fa3-9538-0024042c34ab.jpg?v=1769441044"},{"product_id":"mullah-said","title":"Mullah Said","description":"\u003cp\u003eThose not familiar with Jones' style will listen slack-jawed at the sheer anticipatory nature of his sound collage. The five extended tracks are based on hypnotic and somewhat menacing grooves: a repetitive dub bass beat, waves of Middle Eastern strings and voices, layers of building hand percussion. The washes of sound and percussion come and go, often creating a sense of motion and change. All of the tracks are similar and even share elements. Mid-East tension is so accurately captured through the use of the region's instrumentation (especially percussion), sinister electronics, samples of men chanting, women crying, sounds culled from the horrors of war, and occasional angry distortion that the listener will be transported to the belly of the beast.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eMullah Said\u003c\/em\u003e displays two aspects of the work of Muslimgauze. Firstly, musically, it is in the delightful drifting ambient vein. The percussion is mainly acoustic hand drums - providing a rhythm of aural features - the trademark shimmering string sound heard on a number of releases is much in evidence, rhythms are generally slower, there are lots of samples of people speaking in conversation, markets wherever. 'Mullah said' opens the disc with the lovely mix of these sounds. 'Every Grain of Palestine Sand' continues the mood, with a slightly faster tempo, and more emphasis on the beat. But it soon locks into a mesmeric lassitude as various effects echo or smear the sounds, drums come in for short moments, different string sounds enjoin the play. 'Muslims Die India' follows the mood though the voices seem darker, sadder, and then comes 'Every Grain of Palestinian Sand' followed by 'Muslims Die India'. Yes - not a typo, these tracks are repeated. Muslimgauze trend – to remix himself. Prime Muslimgauze middle eastern ambience - if you like that side you will love this album. The final track is short and different, a crackling ground over which a singer chants a song interrupted by machine-gun percussive bursts - 'An End'.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Staalplaat","offers":[{"title":"2LP - Black","offer_id":56635796160843,"sku":"R7645-0976","price":49.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"CD","offer_id":56635796193611,"sku":"R7645-4574","price":24.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/4e5a15dd-6196-c04f-53c1-94754ade8bf6.jpg?v=1772100980"}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/collections\/test_d8ffec77_thumbnail_4096_3ea130a9-52f0-40d4-ba8a-1d63eee6f90d.jpg?v=1726906739","url":"https:\/\/shop.roughtrade.com\/de\/collections\/staalplaat.oembed","provider":"Rough Trade","version":"1.0","type":"link"}