Ethiopiques S/D

http://www.ethiopianmillennium2000.com/millennium.html

The website does not list the names of the performers (in English at least) I had to e-mail them several times before I could find out the names listed above.

You know, I was just thinking that I was surprised they've done a volume of Tigrigna music, but never a comp of trad Gurage stuff, which I think their audience would REALLY go for -- and then some YouTube clicking around videos of Gurage music leads me to Tewodros & Abraham's "Gurageton," which is ... okay, I just get a kick out of seeing an MC clutching a carafe of tej!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RhZjrxUpxfE

Wow, reggaeton has reached the Gurage people of Southwestern Ethiopia.

The dancing in that video totally kicks ass.

I like the ending too.

And tell us about that drink? I guess I could just look it up, since you gave the name.

Mmm. Honey mead something or other.

It's v. good.

Really need to get the rest of the series. I scored about half of them in the Great Tower Bankruptcy Firesale.

Yea, Tej is good. Busy with family I missed the big Ethiopian show with Mahmoud Ahmed and many others last night. Maybe I can make the outdoor event near the Washington Monument this week--I think there will be music at it.

Out of curiosity, how do people who like the Ethiopiques vintage stuff feel about late-80s/90s/current material -- i.e., the more laid-back digital-keyboard style?

i do not know it at all!

Just a random example of Ethiopian semi-trad pop (as opposed to, you know, more global pop sounds) -- Netsanet Mekonen. This just seems like one where you can hear plenty of continuity from the kind of stuff on Ethiopiques:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=tPFkqZKm_sI

Sadly, 90% of Ethiopian-music comments boxes on Youtube are now flamewars involving someone called EritreanBabe. On the plus side, some guy has a bunch of "old-school" TV clips that are basically like Ethiopian Soul Train, and some guy has done a "Habesha Idol" clip that involves him putting in fake teeth and doing a solid speaking imitation of an older-generation Ethiopian.

for anyone in teh Boston area

free lecture/demonstration
Friday, September 28, 3 pm : "From Azmari to Jazz and Pop: Ethiopian Traditional and Modern Music." New College Theatre Rehearsal Studio, 10-12 Holyoke St. For more information, call 617.495.8676.
http://140.247.118.196/lfp/details.cfm?EVENT_ID=7194

Either/Orchestra with special guests Hana Shenkute, Setegn Atanaw, Minale Dagnew and Mulatu Astatke
The Somerville Theatre
Davis Square, Somerville MA
September 29, 2007: 7 pm tix: $28
http://www.worldmusic.org/concerts_event_indiv.php?p_seq=624

also, was rereading the thread and saw this
"volume 10 - tezeta - is also fantastic. A beautiful Seyfou Yohannes track "
reminding me that the Seyfou Yohannes track, Tizeta, was sampled for Common's "The Game"

hi H!

Out of curiosity, how do people who like the Ethiopiques vintage stuff feel about late-80s/90s/current material -- i.e., the more laid-back digital-keyboard style?

i like it all right; i don't know anywhere near as much about it as i do with the golden age jamz but those dudes are playing and singing around here all the time. i am not 100% into the types of keyboard sounds they tend to use, and i miss the sweat and funkiness and guitars. some of the arrangements are pretty kickass though.

"laid-back"?? most of that stuff is speeded up and laid-back is not what i'd call it, personally i find most of it an abomination, some really talented singers and some musicians out there but the arrangements and lack of songwriting on most of it really depresses me

i like some of the new stuff, Burntface, the ethiop hiphop guys out of (atlanta?) have some nice tracks, Off track just majes me giggle, friends loved the bole 2 harlem album which left me kinda cold but no antipathy

Gigi has done some fabulous work, the Gigi album with Wayne Shorter, Pharoah Sanders, HYerbie Hancock, Henry Threadgill + ethiop musicians really did more than anything to push what was being done contemporarily forward, the acoystic album she did Abyssinia Infinite also did a lot to push boundaries but tho ppl are impressed its easier to churn out another quickie synth-based studio album than anything else

right now i'm all at abt the budos and their mix of funk with ethiop styles, highly recommended

oh, and hello back mr slutsky

H, our man in Addis Adaba. (There really needs to be a full on FAP there.)

Schedule it before the end of the year, and it can be H and my mom, at least.

Laid-back = a lot of the more recent stuff I hear over here, at least, draws as much on Ethio jazz stuff, which calms it down a little -- but I think a lot of the "laid back" feel just sits in the difference in feel between guitar + bass + punchy horns (on 70s-era stuff) and mellow digital synth settings (toward the late 80s or whenever). But it might also be a matter of what crosses the ocean (haha and deemed sedate enough to play & sell in restaurants)

new Ethiopiques sub-label has just released a DVD with The Ex and Getatchew Mekuria... here's a bit of the promo...

The DVD ‘11 Ethio-punksongs’ by French filmmaker Stephane Jourdain will be out in october. Its a registration of the practices with the Ex and Getatchew mixed with the concert at the Banlieues Bleues Festival in Paris. It will be out on Ethiosonic, (Buda Musique) the new sublabel of the Ethiopiques series, compiled by Francis Falceto. There are also concerts planned for december. A.o. The Africolor Festival in Paris, Transmusicale in Rennes, State X in Den Haag and others.

They also have a collab CD out on Terp, I haven't heard it but I did hear a fantastic show that they did together, this Ethiopian phase of The Ex is maybe my favorite stuff of theirs since 1983-84.

so 'bisco, hook me & yer mom up, we'll go out and establish exactly how our families know each other and/or are related etc

teh Ex/Getachew CD is excellent, did 2 shows with 'em back in january for my festival, Francis Falceto who does Ethiopiques thinks the 2nd show was the best concert he's seen in Ethiopia in over 20 years of coming here, audience going batshit, was excellent

ethiosonic is new imprint so ethiopiques will focus exclusively on vintage stuff and ethiosonic will do more recent stuff, the ex/getachew dvd (which is v. v. good) is the second release, 1st which came out cpl months back was either/orchestra backing up Mahmoud Ahmed, next releases most likely more electronic based

will wait to think out what i want to say re synth stuff and then post that

I was listening to a Mulatu Astatqe record from the later 1990s yesterday. It is dreadful synth jaxz, the Ethiopiques' Tutu.

should there be a separate thread for non-Ethiopiques style Ethiopian music?

Vol. 4 -- which includes songs featured in the Bill Murray film, Broken Flowers -- is full of spooky, groovy, noir-ish jazz. It's a fantastic, leftfield record.

8/18/08 - Millennium Park, Chicago, IL
8/20/08 - Lincoln Center, New York, NY

2 American shows left on sax man Getatchew Merkuria's US tour with the Ex. I guess I should get Ethiopiques #14 that he's on...

IF you get a chance to see Getatchew with the Ex, go!

His being in the USA wih the Ex explains why is not playing with his Ethiopian pals next friday in Dun Laoghaire.

http://www.voanews.com/english/africa/blog/index.cfm?mode=cat&catid=C28D5643-ECC3-F68B-D782AC0B89DDFB24

Just came across this March 18, 2008 Ethipian music posting on the Voice of America radio African music treasures blog

listening to ethiopiques 17, RIP tlahoun gessesse...

http://www.thefader.com/articles/2009/4/16/q-a-freeload-mulatu-astatke-the-heliocentrics-masengo

^ so hot

How did I miss out on all of this? I only have Vol 4 (Mulatu Astatke) and Vol 4 (Solo Piano, Tsegué-Maryam Guèbrou), but drooooooooooooooooooooooooooooool.

Track 4 on Vol 4, "Tezeta (Nostalgia)" may be my favorite new (to me at least) song I've heard all year.

oops, meant Vol 4 and Vol 21.

Track 4 on Vol 4, "Tezeta (Nostalgia)" may be my favorite new (to me at least) song I've heard all year.

Yeah, this is my favorite song from the series (Vol. 4 is probably my favorite disc from the series, too). I think Tezeta was also on the Broken Flower movie soundtrack.

4 & 21 are both dope

Ah man, I don't want to feel like I've already heard all the best stuff!

Maybe I'll seek out the best of and try to scope out what direction to go from here.

There's one from a female piano player that's lovely. The songs aren't terribly memorable, but the playing has such a nice touch and feel.

Are you talking about Vol. 21, Solo Piano, by Tsegué-Maryam Guèbrou?

dude, there is so much more great stuff in this series. you may have peaked early but there's more peaking to be peaked.

Getatchew Mekurya!

ZS: Yes, that's the one.

I have Vol 13, which is amazing.

ya there are tons of great ones.

21 is just so perfect... listen to it late at night in the middle of the summer sometime.

xpost - One of my favorites. BTW I would pay, like, $20 to hear your band try to cover "Gud Aderegetchegn."

so many of these are great. vol. 4 is the first one i got but i don't know if it's the best. alemayehu eshete's (vol. 9) is def one the best vocal ones. vol. 1 is great too. emusic has them all which is really nice

Are many of these on vinyl? After a quick search I can only seem to find a few: Vol 1 at Boomkat, and some comment mentioning how glad the person is that L' Arôme Productions is issuing it all on vinyl. A search for L' Arôme Productions and Ethiopiques, typically, yields nothing.

I've never seen a single one of these on vinyl, but I'm not really looking, either.

let's not forget the mahmoud ahmed ones... saw him live a couple of years ago, A+

Man, that guy has a ton of product available at eMusic. Vol. 7 has the song Tezeta, which M. Matos had this to say about: "The 15-song set's final track, "Tezeta," is one of the most beautiful records in any category, from any place — pirouetting recorder, languid organ, soulful guitar, comforting bass line and Ahmed nudging along a sun-kissed, indelible melody." Bold claim.

alemayehu eshete's (vol. 9) is def one the best vocal ones

Yeah, this one is great. Hard to describe. Kind of Middle Eastern singing over some hard funk played on Armenian scales, or something.

Diamanda Galas:

The only music I hear that resembles where American music should go today is Ethiopian music because it combines the knowledge of Byzantium with extra-Ethiopian influences. Keep in mind that Greeks, Ethiopians, and many Egyptians go to the same Byzantine churches, the Greek and Coptic churches. We were raised on the same music.

American people think you go to Ethiopia to claim your heritage, and we all just laugh. Wait 'til you get there, brother. It ain't about black, it's about culture. Culture is under the skin. It is not on top of it. That is “bling”. To us bling is just a cheap rip-off of the ancient masters. So—“too little, too late, too weak, too bad, motherfucker” is what I say to those who do not read. And in the living rooms of my apartments have been many a throwdown over this comment. I laugh.

Cooleh

I'm not really sure what she has in mind specifically (about American music and Ethiopian music), but these interview comments are at least provocative. (Good interview in general, and as always I am gratified by her list of artists she respects, which this time around includes La Lupe, Stelios Kazantzidis, and Marinella, to name the ones that are also my favorites.)

"And in the living rooms of my apartments have been many a throwdown over this comment."

?!?!