BADAWI
Clones & False Prophets (ROIR)
Reviewed by DJ Johnson

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Raz Mesinai returns with another disc of enticingly exotic dub tracks that'll get you to a trance state in no time flat. Not every track is golden, but speaking for myself, I was so gone on the desert images and hypnotic grooves that the few dull spots simply felt like coasting.

Most of it is, as I said, desert music, which shouldn't be a surprise since Mesinai spent a great deal of his youth in the Sinai Desert among Bedouins (in fact, Badawi is a derivative of the word Bedouin). This music is coming from someone who experienced the world he is painting for us in sound. Vocalist Carolyn "Honeychild" Coleman joins Mesinai once again for a pair of tracks, providing the gentle counterpoint to the jagged sawtoothed urgency of the final tune, promisingly titled "To Be Continued."

Badawi does it again. His music transports us to a nomad's land of desert sand, adventure and mystery awaiting just over the next dune. It's all there in the sound, waiting to envelope you.

© 2004 - DJ Johnson