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Concert Mon Sep 24 2007
Roots Riddim Meets The Avant-Garde Uptown
Back in 2000, the Israeli-born, NYC-based composer and producer Raz Mesinai was asked to provide a soundtrack for the film Hellraiser 6. Rising to the task at hand, a majority of the score Mesinai handed in was ultimately rejected by the filmmakers; reportedly because the music -- filled with screeching atonal orchestrations, found sound, and drifting voices -- proved too unsettling and creepy and severe for the film in question.
Mesinai first emerged on the scene in the mid '90s as one half of the "illbient" duo Sub Dub. Over the intervening years, he's worked across the spectrum of the New York experimental music community, most often releasing material under the moniker Badawi. While he's never entirely shed his affinity for deep bass and heavy reverb, he's been additionally putting his skills as a percussionist to work, crafting evocative soundscapes that are densely woven with Mahgrebi and Middle-Eastern rhythms. Recent projects have found him branching out into more unstructured musical territory and working more frequently with prepared piano and electronics. Mesinai eventually, and perhaps inevitably, ended up recording for John Zorn's Tzadik imprint; releasing three albums under his own name through the label's Composers and Radical Jewish Culture series.
Badawi is playing Wednesday night at the Empty Bottle as part of The Wire magazine's Adventures in Modern Music festival. He'll be performing third on a bill that also features White Magic, Holy Fuck, and Graveyards. 1035 N. Western. Admission is $15, and the show gets underway at 9 PM.
[mp3]: Sub Dub – "Dawa Zangpo" (1995)
[mp3]: Badawi – "I Said Oblivion" (2004)
[video]: Raz Mesinai interview (2006)