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I'm listening to some Mahmoud Ahmed right now and I have to say that although I love his songs individually, I get physically nauseous after a while when I hear his stuff. Something about the wobbly and kind of underwatery tones reminds me of bad dope experiences.
From teh NYTimes last April
Critics' Choice
New CD's
Emahoy Tsegué-Maryam Guèbrou
"Éthiopiques 21"
(Buda Musique)
The pianist Emahoy Tsegué-Maryam Guèbrou is an Ethiopian nun. And her background was not as a popular musician: her upbringing was high-society all the way. In the 1940's she studied in Cairo, under a Polish classical violinist who was at one time the musical director of Emperor Haile Selassie's Imperial Bodyguard Band. Returning to Ethiopia at 21, she was to study in England, but the emperor stepped on the plan. Her hopes crushed, she burrowed into religion. She seems to have made five records of her own music, between 1963 and 1996, and has donated all the proceeds to the poor. She lives in an Ethiopian convent in Jerusalem.
Why does this lovely record seem destined for some kind of long cult life, and what is it doing in a column devoted to pop and jazz? It is the new volume of "Éthiopiques," an astounding series of folkloric and pop music from Ethiopia that doubtless draws more listeners from popular than classical music. But there's another reason, too. While the sound of this musician's pensive, repetitive drawing-room études owes something to Beethoven, Schumann and Debussy — although they are studded with little arpeggios special to Ethiopian music — there is a dusky, early-blues quality to much of it. If you've heard some jazz, you could think it was written by Mary Lou Williams or Duke Ellington in their own moments of making their own quiet, original drawing-room music. BEN RATLIFF
― H in Addis (Heruy), Friday, 9 February 2007 13:59 (seventeen years ago) link
No no no fuck the instrumental stuff (j/k don't it's great, but still the vocal stuff is better) and get Volume 3 or Volume 13 and then work your way out from there.
― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Friday, 9 February 2007 15:55 (seventeen years ago) link
yeah i sort of love all of the ethiopiques i've heard but as i've said before and will say again, vol. 8 is a rad intro (and has "hasabe"! - alayew mesfin is the fucking jam and i wish i could find more of his stuff), and vol. 9, the alemayehu eshete disc, is really one of my 50 favorite things ever. SO FUNKY, ROCKS SO HARD.
― whatever i do, it's right (teenagequiet), Friday, 9 February 2007 15:58 (seventeen years ago) link
ten years pass...
cool
Ethiopiques S/D
Some talk on other Ethiopiques thread about Ethiopian church pianists as well
Girma Yifrashewa
Emahoy Tsegue Maryam Guebrou also mentioned there as well
― curmudgeon, Wednesday, 19 April 2017 13:51 (six years ago) link
three years pass...