Badawi

Badawi is Ras Mezinai’s nom de dub. Anyone who had an interest in illbience ten years ago should be very familiar with his work, which fuses dub and Middle Eastern rhythm ideas. After hitting a peak with Soldier Of Midian, he has incorporated more live musicians to interpret his beguiling, fierce polyrhythms. This disc started out as a live session of the Badawi Quintet, which counts among their members jazz drummer Jim Black. Only one of the 12 tracks here preserves the original session. The rest are mixes by an international selection of DJs. Oddly enough, the main floor filler comes courtesy of dubstep don Kode 9, a no nonsense near-steppers groove that urges people forward. Other mixes by Kreng and hhyScumclash take a micro-composed approach that rewards careful listening. Whereas the extreme production and contrasting approaches on remix albums tend to burn a listener out, the diverse approaches on this disc are complementary. There’s a very strong flow from start to finish.