"Dub Step? Truth is music is made from only two things: Frequencies and choices. Once you see it that way genre has absolutely no power anymore and can be mutated into any shape imaginable"
- Raz Mesinai
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Composer, producer and sound alchemist Raz Mesinai makes music at the intersection of Dub and modern composition. As a solo artist and with his ensembles, he creates mythic performances evoking ancient rhythms with electronics, acoustic instruments and turntables. His recordings as Badawi have placed him on the forefront of the experimental electronic scene for over a decade, with remixes contributed by such artists as Kode 9, Shackleton, DJ Spooky and Headhunter, and Badawi remixes of Burning Spear, Arto Lindsay and Shackleton. He’s been a fixture of the downtown New York improvised music scene as well since the late nineties, collaborating with such luminaries as John Zorn, Mark Dresser, Elliott Sharp, DJ Olive and many others.
Mesinai's music has been performed at The Lincoln Center Festival, Zankel Hall, The Kitchen, the Next, Next Wave Festival (BAM), The Whitney Museum, ICA London, Saafelden Jazz Festival, Etnafest, Tonic, The Stone, The Winter Garden, and numerous underground clubs in New York and Europe, including Love, Soundlab, and the legendary Mars, Sound Factory, Limelight and Save the Robots. In recent years, his work has been commissioned and performed by The Kronos Quartet, Ethel, VIA, and cellist Maya Beiser. In 2002 his music received an honorary award in the Ars Electronica Digital Musics category.
Mesinai is also an accomplished film composer. He was a Sundance Composers’ Lab fellow in 2004, and has scored feature films, documentaries, and short films, including Sorry Haters (official selection Toronto Film Festival), Romantico (offical selection Sundance Film Festival) and The Projectionist, for which he won the Herb Alpert Award for Excellence in Music for Film. His music has also been featured in films by Ridley Scott, Jonathan Demme and Darren Aronofsky.
