(Avant, Experimental, Illbient, Tzadik) Raz Mesinai - Cyborg Acoustics - 2004, APE (image+.cue), lossless

Beginning with his work in Sub Dub, illbient/ambient dub composer/programmer Raz Mesinai crafted shimmering, spacious music that was among the dreamiest — and often eeriest — that the genre had to offer. After Sub Dub's breakup, Mesinai continued on as Badawi, adding elements of his Israeli and Middle Eastern heritage to albums such as Badawi Presents Bedouin Sound Clash and Jerusalem Under Fire. Mesinai's 1999 Badawi album The Heretic of Ether found him moving toward a more orchestral, less overtly dub-inspired sound. This trend continued with 2001's The Unspeakable, which was inspired by Mesinai's love of 20th century composers and his work on the Hellraiser 6 soundtrack — much of which wasn't used because it was "too scary for the movie."

Cyborg Acoustics is a spooky listen. The main piece, "Ghosts of the Gulag," is a piece composed for strings, percussion, and sampling. Dark and unsettling, it's a highly composed mixture of scraped strings and skittering percussion, with odd, underwater-sounding treatments and high-frequency clouds that appear and disappear in the mix. Between the treatments and Mesinai's sampling of the string players, one is never sure of what's being performed live and what's being layered on top with sampling. The other piece, "The Reanimator," is altogether different, with John Zorn playing alto sax accompanied by "genetically enhanced improvisers." This consists of sampled and treated performances by vocalist Shelley Hirsch, percussionist Tim Barnes, and Mesinai himself on piano, all sampled, treated, and mixed for Zorn to perform along with. It's not really an easier listen at all, but Mesinai's music is so detailed and original that it's fascinating. This is one that will reward listeners with a taste for uneasy listening.

Exact Audio Copy V0.99 prebeta 4 from 23. January 2008
EAC extraction logfile from 23. December 2008, 14:29
Raz Mesinai / Cyborg Acoustics
Used drive : TSSTcorpCD/DVDW SH-W162C Adapter: 0 ID: 0
Read mode : Secure
Utilize accurate stream : Yes
Defeat audio cache : Yes
Make use of C2 pointers : No
Read offset correction : 6
Overread into Lead-In and Lead-Out : No
Fill up missing offset samples with silence : Yes
Delete leading and trailing silent blocks : No
Null samples used in CRC calculations : Yes
Used interface : Installed external ASPI interface
Used output format : Internal WAV Routines
Sample format : 44.100 Hz; 16 Bit; Stereo
Use compression offset : 0
TOC of the extracted CD
Track | Start | Length | Start sector | End sector
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1 | 0:00.00 | 13:01.11 | 0 | 58585
2 | 13:01.11 | 2:32.13 | 58586 | 69998
3 | 15:33.24 | 7:45.19 | 69999 | 104892
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5 | 30:33.33 | 3:39.50 | 137508 | 153982
6 | 34:13.08 | 6:32.03 | 153983 | 183385
7 | 40:45.11 | 5:25.31 | 183386 | 207791
Range status and errors
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Filename C:\Raz Mesinai (2004) Cyborg Acoustics\Raz Mesinai - Cyborg Acoustics.wav
Peak level 98.8 %
Range quality 100.0 %
Copy CRC 00AD8116
Copy OK
No errors occurred
End of status report