The sixth issue of e/i magazine is out. In it I interview dub figure Raz Mesinai (aka Badawi and one half of Sub Dub) about working with downtown Manhattan out-jazz elite, branching into film music and facing the self-fulfilling prophecy of paying musical tribute to Franz Kafka.
I also review the following albums: Alarm Will Sound‘s Acoustica (Cantaloupe), the broadly reported collection of Aphex Twin covers by an almost entirely acoustic new-music ensemble; Autechre & the Hafler Trio‘s aeo3 & 3hae (Die Stadt), a pairing that’s got more psychedelically abstract Hafler than it does beat-bashing Autechre; Christopher Bissonnette‘s Periphery (Kranky), one of my favorite records of last year (“Best of 2005”); Boduf Songs‘ Boduf Songs (Kranky), sad folk tunes played with funereal grace; Converter‘s Expansion Pack 2.0 (Ant-Zen), a union of industrial music and minimal techno; the Dead Texan‘s very introspective The Dead Texan (Kranky); Dub Gabriel‘s Bass Jihad (Azra), with its Middle Eastern affectations and urban inclinations; Zbigniew Karkowski‘s static and solitary One and Many (Sub Rosa); Daniel Lanois‘ rootsy Belladonna (Anti); Morgenstern‘s Teutonic Two Different Faces (Ant-Zen); M2‘s bracing The Frozen Spark (Ant-Zen); Silk Saw‘s Empty Rooms (Ant-Zen), a score for a play; the Village Orchestra‘s Et in Arcadia Ego (Highpoint Lowlife), all glistening epiphanies and flash-forward road music; and one compilation, the Danish Rump Comp Vol. 1 (Rump).
All that material will be ported to Disquiet.com around the time the seventh issue of e/i hits newsstands. More info at ei-mag.com.