Fela Kuti notably said “music is the weapon,’ and Jerusalem born New York based Raz Mesinai clearly agrees. During the 2004 Republican Convention in New York rather than join the protesters he booked a studio a few blocks away and took his Badawi quintet in and improvised for 10 hours, focussing on “our feelings of rage and hopelessness, and combining them with hope, defiance and anarchy.†Over the next couple of years he sliced, diced, looped and handed the material off to a bunch of international DJ’ producers and sound artists to remix the material including the likes of Kode 9, DJ Spooky, DJ Rupture, and Filastine. Mesinai is a veteran of the New York illbient scene, though has in more recent times been working on film scores and associated himself with some of the downtown avant guard musicians with a couple of albums released on John Zorn’ Tzadik label. The source material here is great, clarinet, cello, bass, percussion, electronics and it’s fascinating to hear how the different mixers have interpreted it. There’ a definite dubby, though also middle eastern flavour to much of the work, very obvious electronics with everything from the abstract sound scape of composer and turntablist Marina Rosenfeld to the precision of Kode 9′ dub-step on Den of Drumz. Some of the more abstract takes are really interesting, such as Belgium based free jazz electronic weirdoes Kreng who keep a slow steady dubby bass loop throughout before drifting in fragments of those middle eastern elements, free percussion, strangled horns and electronics. The groove keeps you locked in while this strange searing energy flitters around mischievously, it’s genius. DJ Rupture makes a clarinet squeal seem human before focussing on a percussive groove whilst DJ Spooky has some fun cutting up and collaging US Iraqi war media propaganda. This is a really interesting release, dark and brooding, the thematic unity of the source material providing a solid link to some really disparate but always interesting approaches.
Bob Baker Fish
