Raz Mesinai is a
New York CityNew York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
-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 FeldmanMorton Feldman was an American composer, born in New York City.A major figure in 20th century music, Feldman was a pioneer of indeterminate music, a development associated with the experimental New York School of composers also including John Cage, Christian Wolff, and Earle Brown...
,
John CageJohn Milton Cage Jr. was an American composer, music theorist, writer, philosopher and artist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music, and non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one of the leading figures of the post-war avant-garde...
, Edgar Varese,
György LigetiGyörgy Sándor Ligeti was a composer of contemporary classical music. Born in a Hungarian Jewish family in Transylvania, Romania, he briefly lived in Hungary before becoming an Austrian citizen.-Early life:...
,
Krzysztof PendereckiKrzysztof Penderecki , born November 23, 1933 in Dębica) is a Polish composer and conductor. His 1960 avant-garde Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima for string orchestra brought him to international attention, and this success was followed by acclaim for his choral St. Luke Passion. Both these...
,
Charles IvesCharles Edward Ives was an American modernist composer. He is one of the first American composers of international renown, though Ives' music was largely ignored during his life, and many of his works went unperformed for many years. Over time, Ives came to be regarded as an "American Original"...
and
Karlheinz StockhausenKarlheinz Stockhausen was a German composer, widely acknowledged by critics as one of the most important but also controversial composers of the 20th and early 21st centuries. Another critic calls him "one of the great visionaries of 20th-century music"...
. 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
illbientIllbient is a term allegedly coined by DJ Olive to describe the iconoclastic music being produced by a community of artists based in the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York in 1994...
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
ROIRROIR , or Reach Out International Records, is a New York City-based record label founded in 1979 by Neil Cooper.ROIR was founded the same year that the Sony Walkman launched, and initially, the label exclusively distributed its releases in cassette format...
label. 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 ZornJohn Zorn is an American avant-garde composer, arranger, record producer, saxophonist and multi-instrumentalist. Zorn is a prolific artist: he has hundreds of album credits as performer, composer, or producer...
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
iPadThe iPad is a line of tablet computers designed, developed and marketed by Apple Inc., primarily as a platform for audio-visual media including books, periodicals, movies, music, games, and web content. The iPad was introduced on January 27, 2010 by Apple's then-CEO Steve Jobs. Its size and...
, under the moniker
Dub Fiction. Mesinai's graphic novels have been featured in
Kode9Kode9 is a London-based electronic music artist, DJ, and owner of the Hyperdub record label. An MC, The Spaceape, is a frequent collaborator...
& The SpaceApe's 2011 LP Black Sun.
Badawi
- Unit Of Resistance (ROIR
ROIR , or Reach Out International Records, is a New York City-based record label founded in 1979 by Neil Cooper.ROIR was founded the same year that the Sony Walkman launched, and initially, the label exclusively distributed its releases in cassette format...
, 2007)
- Safe (Asphodel
Asphodelus ramosus, also known as Branched asphodel, is a perennial herb in the Asparagales order. Similar in appearance to Asphodelus albus and particularly Asphodelus cerasiferus, it may be distinguished by its highly branched stem and smaller fruits.In addition, at least on the Catalan coast...
, 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)
External links