"Leftfield hiphop label Mush delves into more abstract territory with Andre Afram Asmar's sophomore album, a world-music collage suited to college-dorm hookah-sucking marathons. 'Camel Clutch' weaves a hazy stomp through Middle Eastern streets, 'Computer Mammals' plays a video game on Valium and 'Scientism' is uncut dub. Whether you're practicing bikram yoga to the title track's solemn warbles [recorded at Bethlehem refugee camp] or nodding to the insistent percussion and gurgling lyricism of 'Stinktank', fans of eclectic, globe-spanning sonics will find much to enjoy in the 13 soothing cuts." - Marcus Bradley, Urb

"The constant merging of disparate styles of music is interesting to say the least. A few years ago who would have thought we would be hearing a hybrid of dub and Middle Eastern music? Andre Afram Asmar has taken it upon himself to make the two styles of music one, and the results are surprisingly accessible and intriguing. The free-flowing tunes on racetothebottom are heady and trippy, and slightly psychedelic. Asmar's tunes are thick with all kinds of effects, giving the listener the feeling of being light-headed or completely spaced out. At times the effects take center stage, while the songs seem to bleed along haphazardly in the background. While not for everyone, folks into dub music will want to check this out. The music is foreign, and yet strangely inviting to the untrained ear. Not your standard fare by any means." - Babysue

"'racetothebottom' is an ambitious work by Andre Afram Asmar, who has assembled a hefty list of guest musicians and vocalists to lend his dub-centered compositions an authentic world music depth. The liner notes read like those of your typical Bill Laswell record, and Asmar treads some of the same African and Middle Eastern influenced dub paths that Laswell is known for. But 'racetothebottom' feels more like a collaborative homage to diverse sounds than the often forced 'let me sit in on a session' vibe that some of Laswell's recordings draw out. There are nods here to abstract hiphop, Brazillian rhythms and African drumming, and it all flows seemlessly from a single source as if the world's non-western musical forces all got together to kick out the jams. Vocals skate between traditional sounding hyms to droning chants and mantras that roll right along with dubbed-out effects applied to dejembes and doumbeks. The subtle infusion of sampled beats and studio-manipulated textures keeps the album from sounding too much like an Epcot Center jam session, while the Middle Eastern timbres add a somber tone to songs like 'racetothebottom' and 'camelclutch'. Everything is glued together with a heaping dollop of Jamaican dub bass and spacey delay, and when the songs are most dense, they take on the familiar, experimental quality of music made in the presence of a lot of hallucinogenic plants. But what makes 'racetothebottom' such a rich experience is that despite the forays into mind-expanding studio effects, the theme of the album is one of connecting and reflecting on global suffering. There are both pain and hope laced throughout the beats and synths and repeating vocal phrases that elevate the album above being just a clever amalgamation of worldbeat styles and downtempo grooves." - Matthew Jeanes, Brainwashed Brain "Ok, it's a hiphop album. No, no, wait, it's a dub album. Forget that, it' s a Middle Eastern instrumental album. Ok, it's all of those and more. Not what I'd expect from Mush, who have wowed me in the recent past with some of the best hiphop albums to come out across the board. Ethereal voices chant in and out with echoes and glasses clinking ala warriors style, slowly converging into a cohesive, albeit unconventional beat-pattern that had me stopping what I was doing to actually let it all sink in. It's subtle; it's well paced, and it's just plain interesting to listen to. So, by combining all these different genres, by utilizing electronic production alongside live instruments and a variety of diverse vocalists (including Scientist, Elias, and Asmar himself), we end up with a wide-ranging album that is full of nuances and surprises. Well done indeed." - Philip Raffaele, Absorb

"A highly pleasurable downtempo dervish detour on dub's worldwide trade route. Hiring The Scientist to pepper up some of the mixes works a treat, as MiddleEastern scales, live roots and studio mutations push levels deep into the red. Devotees of Wordsound, Laswell or On-U-Sound's world fusions will worship the eclectricity generated by this this LA-based musical nomad." - Kevin Martin, Muzik

"Post 9/11 Western xenophobia could make acceptance of this album unlikely without first taking the masses of asses back to first grade like we did with MLK in the 1960's. If a track like 'Scientism' didn't alienate you in the nineties it certainly can today as you visualize United Airlines Flight 175 meeting you at your front window while this spins. Social and political hypotheses aside, 'racetothebottom' is called a "soundtrack to life". So if you put down your grievances (which Asmar has nowt to do with anyway) away, and your palette becomes unbiased again, you'll hear the levels of sound he spent more than a year assembling from scores of different musicians, emcees, tapes, breakbeats, and sources I'm not yet privy to. Play this for a friend and measure their confused glance first at you, then the speakers themselves. Cavernous dub reggae and Dj Premier hiphop production mixes with Brazilian rhythms and middle-eastern vocals peacefully, casually. It's natural enough to make you wonder why it's not been attempted before. The voices do stand out significantly, and could be where some listener security ends - at first. After you've moved away from the past, 'racetothebottom' will reward you with new shades of melody you initially mistook for dissonance. Are these "versions" of songs from another dimension, or just another viewpoint?" - Jason Thornberry, Americore

"I hate dancing, and I hate dance clubs, yet I can say in all honestly that if I ever found a club that played the sort of music found on 'racetothebottom', I would happily go there every night. Reaching out across such social divides probably never even crossed Andre Afram Asmar's mind when he was making 'racetothebottom', but it's a fairly accurate reflection of the music found within. Throughout, Asmar proves the adage about genius stealing - he melds a wide variety of cultural influences into something that sounds truly universal. A map in the liner notes places China very close to Europe and Africa, and that's as good an indication of the soundscape occupied by 'racetothebottom' as any sort of track-by-track analysis. Every corner of the globe seems to be represented by the sounds thrown into this mix: Puerto Rican timbales, West African djembes, Middle Eastern dourbekas and ouds, Brazilian surdos, cuicas and berimbaus, not to mention a wide variety of strings, wind instruments, guitars and keyboards, and vocals, which come in all manner of languages. On top of all of this is programming and looping and other studio trickery. The result is a swirling, intoxicating mixture of styles from around the world. There's hiphop, reggae, dub, countless forms of electronica, something that vaguely resembles a rock/blues hybrid... you name it. Asmar has blended it all together so that, while no shifts seem to come out of nowhere, the album is full of rhythmic and textural surprises - and the foundation of laid-back beats ensures that the music is compelling enough to keep your body moving. It helps 'racetothebottom' get beneath your skin in a very subtle way; by the time you realize that you can't quite bring yourself to turn the album off, you're hooked. If there is anything disappointing about the album, it's something completely unrelated to the music. The liner notes, in a collage, feature a picture of someone who is ostensibly a suicide bomber, along with a poem written from that point of view. On an album that celebrates the diversity and richness of the music found throughout the world, to the point that Asmar's tastes seem to be genuinely blind to such artificial constructs as race and ethnicity, it's a bit of letdown for him to have included something that runs counter to the spirit of global harmony he otherwise embraces. In any case, whatever beliefs Asmar may hold, he hasn't allowed them to influence his music in any overt way. 'racetothebottom' flows brilliantly around the world. Forget clubs - I could dance to this anywhere." - Matthew Pollesel, Splendid

"The soi-disant mugician brings more global communication in this worldly-wise follow up to his self-released debut, 'Zombeats'. Though the creaking signage and watery vocal which opens Asmar's sophomore album slots right into place at new label Mush, having much in common with hiphop corrupters Doseone and Boom Bip, it is subsonic rumbles of dub bass rather than quick witted lyrics which make up the keystones to this particular body of work. As likely to feature a distant cry of a muezzin as it is the tolling of high noon in a dusty western, Asmar is well versed in the dark arts of sonic collusion, forever twisting samples, clips of lyrics and atmospherics to suit his own ends and promoting harmony in elements which, in other hands, would be both distant and disparate. The result is one of the more easily accessed albums to have graced the Mush imprint to date and, respectively, comes heartily recommended." - Kingsley Marshall, All Music Guide

"'racetothebottom' is a dub-influenced, world music inspired collection of downtempo tunes. Each was built starting with some live instrumentation, then layered with samples and other electronic effects. Different styles are mixed in many songs, Middle Eastern, Jamaican, Brazilian, Caribbean, and African." - AL, Impact Press

"'racetothebottom' is truly world music - an ambitious mixture of hiphop, electronica, and international rhythms. Los Angeles based producer Andre Afram Asmar spent more than a year working on this follow-up to his self-released 'Zombeats' album, recording musicians from Africa, the Middle East, and the Caribbean, and then building tracks around their live parts. The result is a record that's haunting and evocative, summoning both stark desert landscapes and starless city nights. Asmar shows a fine touch for arrangement throughout, bringing together disparate sounds - djembe, flute, keyboard, oud, etc. - while managing to keep the music restrained. The mood for the most part is slow and pensive, but Asmar occasionally kicks things up a notch, with groove-heavy dubbed-out numbers like 'Scientism' and 'To Be a Lover'. Asmar's compositions are elusive and diffuse, but that's what makes them so powerful. 'racetothebottom' bristles with a restless energy that's as dissonant as the world around us." - Martin Woodside, San Francisco Weekly

"Middle Eastern elements, dub, ambient... To borrow from different styles or even merge them into one has become a totally common technique in music nowadays, but rarely are the results as colourful and unique (and not just an addition of styles) as this one. Credits list around twenty guest artists from around the world who contributed to an original mixture based on massive downtempo tracks, enriched in a constructive way with acoustic percussion and other ethnic vocal and instrumental contributions. Finished with various effects, 'racetothebottom' creates a mysteriously thick and heavy atmosphere, and although this album includes all kinds of messages against violence or exploitation, the point that it doesn't sound a bit conceptual makes this one particularly outstanding." - Ikeda Maiko, Real Tokyo

"Since I got this disc about a week ago, it has quickly become on of my favorites. I'll be the first to admit that I know nothing about this artist or how many records he has out, but after hearing this I'm definitely going to look for more. The only real way I can begin to describe this cd is by saying it feels like taking some kind of psychedelic trip around the world. From India to Jamaica to Brazil, each track mixes these world rhythms with dark, down-tempo beats and effects that can put anyone in a cool mood. The cd features 13 tracks that seem to move from one region of the world to the next while maintaining some connection with each other. It would be tough to pick a favorite track and while that might sound bad, it's just that they are equally good. It's one of those rare cds that you can put on and listen to all the way through without having to get your lazy ass up off the couch to skip a track and I have to appreciate that. While I can't recommend this for everyone, I will say that for anyone looking for something a little different, this is a great disc. For fans of relaxed trance beats, world music and dark moods this is a must-have." - Vapors

"Andre Afram Asmar delivers deepest dubby downtempo on the serious world tip. The LA-based producer follows up his self-released debut, 'Zombeats' with this enlightening cross-continental and multicultural fusion of syrupy-thick beats and far-out samples from the Middle East, Latin America, Africa and the Caribbean." - San Francisco Examiner

"Here we find ourselves peering into the dawn of the 21'st century, and somehow almost incoherently we have evolved to establish a frame of thought with the ability to envelop almost all musical trends, we consistently combine and restructure ideas, cultures, languages, talents, clothing, technology, and even our toothbrushes. And just when you think your knowledge of musical styles and our environment in general is fermenting into an intoxicating blend sure to hook the next generation of thrill seeking unconscious mind expanding freaks. Then here comes Andre Afram Asmar with a piece of music so distinct that you cannot deny that original material does still exist. Sure it pulls from almost every thinkable genre of music, but still is so unique in character that you can't help but wonder just what this guy is like in real life and if he can ingeniously pull together so many people and styles why the hell don't we paste a idealized belief system on him and start chanting his name as the sound of a new revolution. A year in the making Andre has pulled together over twenty guest artists on this album, ranging in geographical placement from Israel, to Latin America, back to the Middle East, down to Africa, and even those relaxing in the Caribbean, making it as much a compilation of culture as it is a musical expression. If you find yourself appreciating the exploration of styles in music then 'racetothebottom' will hold your interest to say the least. He flawlessly meshes hints of Jamaican dub with lighthearted chants of middle eastern vocals. Then spazzes out with some Brazilian rhythm tinctured with a nice blend of western electronic manipulation. Each track effortlessly adds to the obscure texture you find yourself confronted with. He has an ability to lose you in his loose often-metallic melodies abhorrent with rhythmatic precision ranging from tablas, to dijembes, to basic 909 hits. All along attaining a perfect balance of personal insight and environmental exploration. If you like elemental dub, Asian mysticism, Israeli vocals, African rhythm, or world music in general I suggest you check this out. Otherwise get your hands prepped to milk the next "essential" electronically manipulated cash cow that comes your way." - Philo, Hybrid "This is a big time capital "D" dub album, with no holds barred effects swirling around from speaker to speaker. It's an album in which there is so much processing on each track that the dub treatment is integral to the original composition. The ingredients are lots of Middle Eastern dumbek loops and reeds on top of dub bass lines, with occasional batucada and nyabinghi touches and lots of vocals, sampled, sung and recited throughout. Altogether it sounds like a Levant-based head charge. Unlike one of the lesser Laswell-ian pastiches, there are tons of well executed ideas with much strategy behind them, but 'racetothebottom' still doesn't sound calculated. Another point of reference would be Muslimgauze, who also deals with the themes of suffering peoples around the world, although Asmar processes the vocal contributions so much it's difficult to make out some of the points of view he's trying to express. Unlike Muslimgauze, there is less of a hiphop feel to this disc (odd, since Mush is known for its progressive hiphop releases), although tracks like 'Computer Mammals' have some nicely processed beats. When 'racetothebottom' does get down to its reggae content, it sounds great too, as in 'Scientism' mixed by the legendary Scientist." - David Dacks, Exclaim!

"This disc finds underground hiphop hotbed Mush deviating into radical multicultural inventiveness. On his second album, LA producer Andre Afram Asmar unearths dub's roots and then fertilizes them with exotic seeds from Africa, the Middle East and Crooklyn. Asmar consistently keeps things eerie and disorienting, but he retains a soulful humanity amid the studio sorcery. 'racetothebottom' is as sonically radical as mystical iconoclasts Muslimgauze and Badawi, but with a more uplifting spirit than either. Arabic-dub juggernauts like 'Camel Clutch' and 'Traptivity' are potently psychedelic antidotes to the dull worthiness of most world-music-inflected fusion." - Dave Segal, XLR8R

"Although Mush has primarily concerned itself with documenting West Coast indie hiphop since setting sail as a label a few years back, this release from Andre Afram Asmar breaks with that tradition in a brilliant confluence of North American, Caribbean and Middle Eastern cultures. Working out of his Los Angeles recording studio, The Shroud, Asmar fuses dub and traditional Arabic music played by live musicians through an electronica production aesthetic and anti-oppression worldview, in the process creating a recording powerful enough to heal gunshot wounds if applied in the proper circumstances. While it's obvious that there's a liberal amount of studio manipulation involved in piecing these tracks together, that's half the beauty of it - countless producers could assemble a group of hot studio musicians to hack out some sort of halfassed nouveau melting pot idea, but the way in which Asmar takes these raw materials and blends them into transcendental gems of cultural syncrotism is the work of pure genius. The more straight-ahead IDM feel that prevails on the tracks where Asmar has little or no studio assistance ('Computer Mammals' 'Free Fire Zone', 'Rajarralshitan') is duly noted, but I'd be impressed even if that's all he had to offer. However, when he tape the results of his nightly Shroud jam sessions, the results are nearly mystical - as the vortex of echo-treated Arabic vocals and Brazilian percussion that comprises 'Judgemtime' or the Bedouin hip-hop of 'Duniagariba' unequivocally attest. Two tracks recorded at Studio 56 by The Scientist throw a healthy dub element into the equation as well, as Elias' vocals on 'Scientism' shorten the gap between Kingston and Marrakech from an ocean to a puddle and 'To Be A Lover' references George Faiths Scratch-produced classis of the same name to fantastic effect. But Asmar saves his master stroke for the disc's conclusion - the little cut 'Race To The Bottom', which uses aa vocal track recorded live at the the Dheisha refugee camp in Bethlehem to unite music and ideology in an unforgettable sublimation. To make music this beautiful and unique is worthy of international recognition in and of itself, but to also infuse it with political resonance? That's an act worthy of a Nobel Prize." - Scott Hreha, Signal to Noise

"Some of the songs on 'racetothebottom' come close to painting an actual picture. The sound is too experimental to have any true pop appeal, but when I first heard Andre Asmar's album, I had to ask, "Where the hell does this music come from?" Asmar's got a long, hard and dark story for a 28 year old who is arguably at the forefront of both hybrid and political music. In 'Traptivity' a Brazilian rapper rhymes over Arabic music as a hiphop beat keeps it all from falling apart. Jamaican dub ebbs throughout, distorting vocals and pieces of the instrumentals. There is a definite and necessary political undercurrent in Asmar's sonic voyages. Let him take you along for the ride." - Ruvan, Yellow Rat Bastard

"The well-regarded avant hiphop label Mush takes a sharp left turn with this album from producer Andre Afram Asmar and his troupe of over 20 guests, including dub producers, hiphop vocalists, and ethnic musicians and performers from around the world. On the surface, there are some striking similarities to the ethno-dub projects of Bill Laswell, but a couple of close listens to racetothebottom reveal an album that seems less rushed and more heartfelt than the usual results of Laswell's album-of-the-month production style. Asmar exhibits an impeccable touch at the mixing desk and a careful ear for sound, expertly layering his electronic bed tracks with everything from joyful Latin America rhythms and dense dub soundscapes to the ancient sounds of the oud, djembe, and doumbek. A disparate mixture of vocals are also woven throughout the record, including the Middle Eastern sounds of Elias, a smattering of hiphop courtesy of Transducer, and the moving and plaintive voice of Shurouq as recorded at the Dheisha refugee camp in Bethlehem. It may seem like a trite platitude, but at a time when our world is so fractured, the East meets West musical harmony of Asmar's work helps kindle a bit of hope that things just might work out OK in the end." - Greg Clow, Grooves

"Andre Afram Asmar's 'racetothebottom' has dub-reggae roots, but his collages incorporate Arabic singing, Indian sitar, Latin percussion, echo-saturated rap and baby talk, for starters. It's not globe-hopping; it's a meltdown." - New York Times

"Andre Afram Asmar does some quirky fusion-hop with a worldly feel. 'robophiloso' has a lot of discordant percussion. 'camelclutch' continues the Lawrence of Arabia vibe featuring reverbed orchestration of Middle eastern origin and vocals. 'traptivity' is a hiphop instrumental with desert chanting. Andre Afram Asmar has a distinct sensibility in a world drowning in sound-a-like hiphop productions. Seriously good shit, hiphop that shuffles to a different beat with a dub claustrophobic sesibility driving the whole thing. 'stinktank' drops in an emcee, but he's so dubbed out that the production drives the song with the emcee backing the whole thing. Again, it's bad ass and original. 'tobealover' is soulful reggae. Wait a minute, we have a good emcee track, good world dub stuff, and a good reggae number on one cd by one guy. The title track ends the album with distorted drums and a little Kora (I think). Allah probably looks down on this, but for Christ's sake here in the US we can enjoy cultural pillaging and the gems of connections these fusions make. Take a look, get a few ideas for your next album, or even better, get this guy on the payroll to mix your stuff." - Andrew Jones, Ghetto Blaster