Loop Guru
The listening tastes of spokesman Jal Muud (South American pipe music, Morrocan indigenous sounds) has informed the career of Nation Records' Loop Guru. Together with Salman Gita he forms the core of the band, aided by up to ten guest musicians for various events (who include former Pigbag drummer Chip Carpenter and percussionist Mad Jym). The duo have been involved in music since 1980 when they were early members of the Megadog enclave, meeting through mutual friend Alex Kasiek (Trans-Global Underground). It was at this time that Jamuud: ‘….stopped listening to Western music altogether. I foudn that the wealth of sound and mood in Asian and African music was vastly more alive than its Western counterparts.’ Offering their listeners ‘total enlightenment through music’, Loop Guru have perfected a package of chants, laments, tablas, Eastern religion and ethnic samples, which was first brought to the public's attention via their SUS-SAN-TICS EP, which featured the guest vocals of Sussan Deheim (b. Iran). A debut album was recorded, its title, DUNIYA, translating from Urdu as The World. Part of the methodology evolved from Brian Eno's Choice Cards ethos, wherein different instructions on musical structure are carried out via the turn of a set of cards. It placed them at the forefront of the ‘world dance’ movement. Arguably their most effective and popular single to date has proved to be Paradigm Shuffle, which included at its core Martin Luther King's ‘I Have A Dream’ speech.