Raz Mesinai

Raz Mesinai (born Reuel "Raz" Mesinai in Jerusalem in 1973) is a New York City-based composer, producer, musician, writer and visual artist. Mesinai has released 14 albums and numerous 12"s, EPs and remixes on several labels including Instinct, Asphodel, ROIR, and Island Records.

Early career

At the age of ten, he began experimenting with telephone answering machines and creating audio tape loops. Soon after, he discovered dub reggae and was exposed to contemporary composers such as Morton Feldman, John Cage, Edgar Varese, György Ligeti, Krzysztof Penderecki, Charles Ives and Karlheinz Stockhausen. He began composing music and experimenting with drum machines, tape loops, turntables and percussion. He also began writing and illustrating a graphic novel called Badawi. At the age of 20, Mesinai was DJing at various clubs around New York City including Save The Robots, Mars, Limelight, The Tunnel, The Sound Factory and Nylon. Around this time, he met John Ward and started the experimental dub duo Sub Dub, which later became influential in the illbient music scene. Mesinai abandoned the Badawi graphic novel and started doing recordings under that name, as a sound track to the story he was narrating.

At the age of 22, he released his first solo album, Bedouin Sound Clash featuring Honey Child, in 1996 on the ROIR label.^[1] His next full-length albums include Jerusalem Under Fire, released in 1998 on ROIR, The Heretic of Ether, released in 1999 on Asphodel, Sound of Midian, released on ROIR in 2001, Clones and False Prophets released in 2003 on ROIR, Safe, released in 2006 on Asphodel, and Unit of Resistance, released in 2007 on ROIR.

In his mid-twenties, Mesinai met avant-garde composer John Zorn and became a fixture in New York City's downtown music scene, improvising on percussion and live electronics. Mesinai was approached to score the Horror film Hellraiser 6, but the score was later rejected.

His first album under his own name was titled The Unspeakable and released on BSI. The sophomore album as Raz Mesinai was titled Before The Law and it came out on tzadik, as well as the next two, Cyborg Acoustics and Resurrections for goatskin.

Current work

In 2011, Raz Mesinai launched a series of graphic novels for the iPad, under the moniker Dub Fiction. Mesinai's graphic novels have been featured in Kode9 & The SpaceApe's 2011 LP Black Sun. His composition La Citadelle is featured on the 2012 album Heavy from string quartet ETHEL.^[2]

Discography

Badawi

• Unit Of Resistance (ROIR, 2007)
• Safe (Asphodel, 2006)
• Clones and False Prophets (ROIR, 2003)
• Soldier of Midian (ROIR, 2001)
• The Heretic of Ether LP (Asphodel, 1999)
• Final Warning EP (Asphodel, 1999)
• Jerusalem Under Fire LP (ROIR, 1998)
• Bedouin Soundclash feat. Honeychild LP (ROIR, 1996)

Raz Mesinai

• Cyborg Acoustics (Tzadik, 2004)
• Resurrections for Goatskin (Tzadik, 2002)
• Before the Law (Tzadik, 2001)
• The Unspeakable (BSI Records, 2002)

Sub Dub

• Original Masters 1993-95 LP (the Agriculture, 2001)
• Dancehall Malfunction LP (Asphodel, 1997)
• Sub Dub LP (Instinct, 1996)
• Dawazangpo EP (Totally Killing It Productions, 1995)
• Babylon Unite EP (Totally Killing It Productions, 1994)

LADYMAN

• Viagra Opus (the Agriculture, 2004)

References

External links

Biography portal

• Homepage of Raz Mesinai