Ethiopiques S/D

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S6VLsipKTJc&
Ayalew Mesfin ‎– Lene Anchi Bicha Nesh

Nice.

This may have been have been posted already, but it's beautiful.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZnmJE1XIoE

This is so great.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJ-IxAhumDw

Both of those last two tracks you posted are wonderful.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5N09oe9eK6c

How did I never see this BBC Under African Skies one hour doc about Ethiopia before? Filmed in 1984, it starts with Aster Aweke in DC and then jumps back to Ethiopia and covers traditional music, religious music, and secular . Walias Band, Roha Band, Alemayehu Ashete and more

xp to that brownie post of the Ali Mohammed Birra song - I listened to that a few times in July after it was posted in June, dug it well enough (as I do most Ethiopiques recommendations), and then sometime a month ago in the early morning hours as I was coming out of a dream and got stuck in that annoying half-dream/half-wake phase where you become aware of the weird quickly-repeating themes/scenes at the end of your dream (or whatever it's like for other people), I kept replaying the horn opening to that "Si Inbanbinsin Warri" song without remembering who it was. There's usually always at least one song from the previous day left rattling around in my subconscious every night, and that was it, but a mystery. I spent a while the next night going through everything new I'd listened to recently, and when I finally eureka'd THAT song, it was such a big ol victory that I did my dishes with the whole album cranked, super into it, a triumph for the spirit of ILM.

along those lines I want to put here the first track from what Stevolende put on the What Are You Listening to? 2020 thread, a newly reissued Sharhabil Ahmed (the Sudanese Freddie King maybe) album that I do believe rules

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ElqHJs4O0W4

I couldn't find a recording date for the music on the Sharhabil Ahmed cd , liner notes refer to a 1963 e.p. with a couple of tracks whose titles may be different spellings of tracks on the cd. But it did really strike me that that cd does sound like an earlier point in the development of music I'm hearing in the Ethiopiques series. I could do with hearing more of the traditional music from the areas they're right next to each other and both will have interacted with the Arab world though their location on the coast of the Red Sea and Indian Ocean.
Anyway love both.

The French company that put out the Ethiopiques series also put out Zanzibara which I have 3 discs from which are pretty good. Not sure how well known that 2nd series is.

https://youtu.be/OQVsVL7DNMo

Listening to Eritrean traditional singer & krar player Amleset Abay . She moved to DC at some point & had a restaurant where she and other musicians performed in early 1980s ( that I sadly didn’t know of at the time)

there was some traditional ethiopian music that they played on that bbc4 programme, on an instrument called a begena, and it sounded unearthly

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ZBqBnuRlBQ

see also:

https://www.discogs.com/Sosena-Gebre-Eyesus-Sosena-Gebre-Eyesus/release/12947296

https://www.washingtonian.com/2020/08/12/admass-sons-of-ethiopia-how-a-great-lost-album-is-finding-new-fans/

https://daily.bandcamp.com/features/admas-sons-of-ethiopia-interview

In 1984 some Ethiopians living in the DC area borrowed some $ and recorded an album as Admas and pressed a 1000 copies. Decades later they were selling for a lot on Ebay. A Danish collector living in NYC tracked them down after he bought a copy on Ebay, and he reissued the album. 3 of the band members are back in Ethiopia. 1 tours as Teddy Afro's keyboardist, one is a producer, the other is a music educator.

The album is mostly instrumental and starts with a loungey golden era Ethiopia type track, and has one track with a reggae feel, another with a Brazilian jazz samba portion, and funkier one and one has vocals

I have the Ethiop[iques volume with the Harp of Kind David , not listened to it in years. I heard that begena and assumed it was going to be the same instrument and googling it links it back to an ancient instrument linked to Israel the kinnor which was what David played to KIng Saul.

Dig the buzz.

dang, the reissued LP is already sold out! i like it too, thanks for the tip!

http://www.funkfidelity.de/

This website is a good source for golden era Ethiopian music and the various labels it was issued on (pre-Ethiopiques)

Seeing on Facebook, twitter, & IG that bassist Melake Gebre from the Walias Band has died from cancer at age 71. Am pretty sure he played bass on a great rendition of “Musicawi Silt” by Walias Band arranged by Girma Beyene & including Hailu Mergia on keyboards

respect, melake.☮

unrelated—

i realized recently that the last physical music i purchased was the latest fleet foxes album and that has yet to actually be shipped to me, so i went over to amoeba.com and bought every volume of this that they had currently in stock after years of only knowing volume 4. the ones that happened to be in stock at amoeba were volumes 1, 3, and 17. currently halfway through the tlahoun gèssèssè set and just considering buying up the rest of the series and listening to nothing except this music for the rest of my life.

you could def do worse w/r/t "rest of life" listening

if they do a box set of the complete series, i'm there.

and they should, btw. if someone can do those ridiculous sets for pink floyd demos and outtakes, a complete ethiopiques set seems like a cinch.

This series is like sushi to me. Not my favorite food in the world but I could happily eat it everyday.

for me its one of those things where i wont think about it for a long time, but then when i get in the mood it's all I want to listen to for days. and there always seem to be volumes that I haven't gotten around to (or at least didnt absorb the last time i binged). one of these days i really need to go on discogs and just cop them all so i can line them up on my shelf all nice

so yeah. . . just decided to hit up another vendor (this time importcds) and got one of everything they had in stock. this is volumes: 6, 7, 8, 13, and 28.

wheeeeee!!

importcds' 20% off when you spend $60+ deal has roped me in many, many times

dude. . . volume 28.

omg how great is this

i haven't heard that one!

I wish there were LPs, boxes, mini-boxes, and also mega-boxes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJ-IxAhumDw

I'm on Nagatti si jedha right now, love it of course :D

having just bought some synths, i'm curious which ones they're using

x-post -- yeah Ali Birra is great. Oromo legend.

nothing new to add. finally just got volume 13 and it's absolutely killer.

THIS POLYRHYTHM IS MELTING MY BRAIN
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z_T75B9W9ek

holy hell, how do any of the musicians manage to keep their respective grooves?????

god yes its so wild, 13 is one of my favorites... i put it on a few weeks ago while i was installing some flooring and had to take it off because trying to concentrate on anything else while listening to those grooves kept making me flustered and confused

Oh yeah 13 Ethiopian groove has Walias Band doing “Muziqawi Silt” I think. That’s a classic that a number of musicians and groups cover

I especially love the polyrhythmic switches from straighter single claps to swung/off-time double claps towards the ends of many songs on the Tigrigna/Eritrean one, Vol. 5:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gsS11_hm3Ro

Ali Birra , Mahmoud Ahmed ( Ethiopiques #7 ) and non Ethiopiques Aster Aweke all first came out on Ali “Tango” Kaifa ‘s Kaifa records . Sadly , Ali Kaifa has just passed , I see on Facebook. His role has been analogized to Ahmet Ertegun at Atlantic, and Berry Gordy at Motown. Here’s a 2016 article on him:

https://www.musicinafrica.net/magazine/ali-kaifa-man-who-built-ethiopia%E2%80%99s-motown

Label owner Ali Tango Kaifa didn’t get enough acclaim outside Ethiopia . RIP

RIP Gash Ayele Mamo, Ethiopian mandolin player and songwriter who played a big role in classic Ethiopiques music

This was one of my favorites of 2020: To Know Without Knowing, by Mulatu Astatke w Melbourne-based Black Jesus Experience, incl. trad Ethiopian and Aboriginal songs, among other elements

https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a2196770380_16.jpg

whole thing is here:
https://mulatuastatkeblackjesusexperience.bandcamp.com/album/to-know-without-knowing

And The Rough Guide to Ethiopian Jazz was my gateway:

01 Mulatu Astatke: Gamo 05:12
02 Akalé Wubé: Alègntayé 04:17
03 The Budos Band: Origin Of Man 04:52
04 Getatchew Mekuria & The Ex & Friends: Ambassel 07:36
05 Tesfa Maryam Kidane: Heywete 05:13
06 Tlahoun Gessesse: Aykedashem Lebe 04:56
07 Samuel Yirga: Firma Ena Wereket 06:55
08 Gabriella Ghermandi: Be Kibir 08:16
09 Emahoy Tsegue-Maryal Guebrou: The Homeless Wanderer 07:05

Total Playing Time: 54:42
https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/1826/7323/products/RGNET1350_2000x.jpg?v=1536217426

xp yes that Mulatu/BJE record is excellent

Another great Ethiopian producer / label owner gone: RIP Amha Eshete, whose Amha Records was notable. He also helped Walias band members after he fled to the US

https://www.musicinafrica.net/fr/node/15368

Earlier bio of Amha Eshete covering his years as a pioneering Ethiopian producer and label owner, plus touching on his later years after he fled to Washington DC and started the Blue Nile and the Ibex restaurant/ clubs.

Another article on Amha Eshete ‘s Ethiopian years.

https://pan-african-music.com/en/amha-eshete-the-dreamer/

Both of these articles were penned earlier, and are not obits .

Funeral is Tuesday in Ethiopia. Fans of classic Ethiopian golden era music having to deal with deaths of Kaifa, Mamo, and Eshete now over a very short span.

man. so grateful to know about this music and all of those amazing people.

Hailu Mergia & The Walias Band Tezeta is being re-released on June 4, the band’s first full-length album that was originally released in 1975.

Below is from press release and liner notes

Virtually unheard(-of) outside Ethiopia—and extremely rare locally—the cassette-only release came out on the band’s own label housed in their record shop in the mid-70s. This is a historic record of one of the most interesting and pioneering bands of the “golden age” of Ethiopian popular music. The music is absolutely bonkers despite the sound quality.

FYI—Walias were the house band at the Hilton, Addis’ legendary high-end hotel, where they played nightly. They recorded the album in the nightclub itself and pressed the tape in Athens. The music beautifully encapsulates the way bands were re-vamping traditional music into soulful new renditions, and the Walias were THE instrumental-focused band of the era, breaking ground on so many levels (see notes below).

The record includes archival photos, interview content with former hotel staff and an essay by a long-time knowledgable fan and ATFA friend Tessema Tedele. Audio is carefully extracted and remastered from one of the only known original copies of the tape by the engineer we have worked with on every release, Jessica Thompson.

Odds are, any Ethiopian over the age of 35 who had access to TV or radio by the early 90s, will instantly recognize the sound of Walias. What is not a given is, how many would actually identify the band itself. Barely a day went by without hearing the Walias either in the background on radio or as an accompaniment to various programs on TV. Their music was so ubiquitous in media that most of us who enjoyed it never bothered to go out and look for it. Gradually, they started to slip out of public consciousness by the early 90s when newer works by bands such as Roha and Axumite were favored. Only then did those of us feeling a certain sense of loss started inquiring about "that music from TV" at record stores. Yet, most of their work remains stubbornly elusive.

This "Tezeta" album is one of those that have been impossible to find for nearly three decades. Sourced by Awesome Tapes From Africa and expertly remastered by Jessica Thompson, its unique and funky renditions of standards and popular songs of the day are so quintessentially Walias, flavorful and evocative. Hailu's melodic organ, unashamedly front and center in every track, makes even the complex pieces accessible. The stirringly distinct opening riff from "Zengadyw" took me right back to a certain time in my youth. Deliciously vivid, it's a time capsule in and of itself. "Gumegum" is a definite favorite. The vocal version, most popularly sang by the legendary Hirut Bekele, tells of unrequited love - an over-exploited theme in music of the time. "Tezeta" is the traditional anthem of nostalgia that doing a version of it was, for a long time, a rite of passage for any aspiring musician. "Endegena" (To Love Again), is a sleepy ballad by Mahmoud Ahmed getting a zesty uplift here. "Ou-Ou-Ta" is one of the signature songs of the greatest of them all, Tilahun Gessesse.

https://www.clashmusic.com/news/alemayehu-eshete-has-died

RIP the “Ethiopian Elvis” “Alemayehu Eshete. Some of his 1969 to 1974 songs are on Ethiopiques #9

RIP.

I thought this revive was going to be about this interview with Mulatu Astatke:

https://news.google.com/articles/CAIiEIKDOVgIRYPtT6j56Elz7usqGAgEKg8IACoHCAow-4fWBzD4z0gw_fCpBg?hl=en-US&gl=US&ceid=US%3Aen

rest well, alemayehu☮

just catching up with to know without knowing and it's predictably great.

Yep

see also:

https://www.discogs.com/Sosena-Gebre-Eyesus-Sosena-Gebre-Eyesus/release/12947296

― sleeve, maandag 7 september 2020 1:16 (one year ago)

RIP contemporary era Ethiopian singer Madingo Afework at too young an age. Not from classic era Ethiopiques, but thought folks who go to this thread might appreciate him

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-oyFQYoUTc