SPECIES OF FISHES Vinyl & CDs

Review: Bryn Jones' complex musical legacy as Muslimgauze will still be pored over for a long time to come, but even by his obscure standards this release from 1999 is a bit of a curveball. Without knowing the exact back story, it seems that Jones wound up creating an album by remixing parts from two different records by Species Of Fishes, a Russian duo who were in the early wave of techno and electronica artists in the wake of the Soviet Union's collapse. Compared to the heavily Arabic sound sources and pervasive drums of most Muslimgauze releases, this is a much lighter affair which glides between dislocated electronica and dub, never taking a particularly safe or obvious route but certainly not as ominous as much of Jones' venerated catalogue.