Customer Reviews

Ethiopiques, Vol. 8: Swinging Addis

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The most immediate effect of listening to this CD for the first time is surprise. The rhythms on all songs are not traditionally Ethiopian, but closer to American R&B from the 50's and 60's. Even a traditional singer like Ayalew Mesfin joins with a funky song. Girma Beyene is a complete original, borrowing very little from his own roots. Lemma Demissaw sound best to my ears. I feel he is very comfortable with the American R&B and sounds real "cool". His songs are the high point of the CD. All songs by Alemayehu Eshete display his R&B style - very successfully. This is not authentic Ethiopian Music, but it is good Ethiopian music and I recommand it to lovers of this genre.

The Ethiopiques series is an amazing series of re-issues of Ethiopian nightclub music from the 60's and 70's.
Something special was going on in Addis Ababa, in the swinging 60's and 70's. Ethiopian musicians were mixing American Soul, Funk, Jazz, R 'n B, and their own Ethiopian musicianship into a unique creation. The music is somehow familiar and exotic at the same time, most of the music features (at least to western ears) atypical, time signatures, scales, horn arrangements, and vocalizations. But the music is still swinging soul and funk ala, The Meters, James Brown, and Herbie Hancock. If you have any preconceived notions of "World" and "African" music, this CD will definitely challenge those ideas.
I would wholeheartedly recommend this as a starting point to anyone who's been curious about this series; it will blow you away and open your mind!

I brought this record to a friend I was staying with out of town--he had a party that night and played it three times in a row. The whole Ethiopiques series rocks & this one with the combination of the Ethiopian pop thing and white-boots go-go grooves is just about pure pleasure.