Customer Reviews

Zion Roots

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Gigi's long awaited new album has not failed its promise. This new cd follows the same general lines of her previous album, with less jazz-fusion touches and more traditional Ethiopian sound.

To this album Gigi brought several different Ethiopian rhythms. There is a song with a touch of Guragegnya (Embe Asheferegne), and an Agaw song (Monew Natana). Other than that, Gig sticks to Amhara based music, with the two catchiest Ethiopian scales (Bati and Tizita). There are, of course, touches of funk that probably come from Bill Laswell.

It is interesting to compare this music, aimed at world music market, with music that is being aimed at Ethiopians more exclusively. While Gigi's music is very rhythmic, it is not dance music, while practically all music that is produced for the Ethiopian market is dance music.

Gigi's great contribution is that her work offers the highest standards of production - in sound, arrangement and instrumentation. She thus opens the way for Ethiopian musicians to the broader world market, and brings the Ethiopian sounds to many fresh, non-Ethiopian ears.

Gigi has an average voice in the traditional Ethiopian sense, but her voice is perfect for the setting that the album offers. It is sensual and reflective, and allows the general "world" mood that is required. The playing of the other musicians on this cd is amazing, from the traditional Kirar and washint to the more modern saxophone. The tenor sax is played by Moges Habte, who is, in my opinion, the leading Ethiopian sax player today, and deserves greater exposure.

My favorite track is the last, "Ethiopia", that features a beautiful, haunting loop behind Gigi's best singing.

This cd is essential for anyone interested in Ethiopian music, world music, or just good music that feels great.

This is really Bill Lasswell at the top of his game. Of course the stars of the album are Gigi and the wonderful musicians. This is truly beautiful music, intriguingly presented , heavy on traditional acoustic instruments. Gigi's voice is truly superb as others have noted; she manages to instill these songs (a collection of traditional and Gigi-composed tunes) with an amazing interplay of inspirational religiosity, atmospheric exoticism, and certainly, sentient eroticism as well. At the same time, it's manifestly Ethiopian and African. What more could you want? Gigi is an amazing performer (I've seen her live) and this album effectively captures her ethereal and cretive artistry and musicianship. Defiinitely a very appealing album for hard core African music fans; the haunting saxophones and accordion are great as are the rhythms and beats. Meaningful lyrics to boot (summaries provided).

What with the album title and all, you'd be forgiven for thinking this was a reggae album, but back in Ethiopia, they actually take that whole Land of Zion thing pretty literally. But no, this isn't another rasta lovefest -- rather, it's a quite lovely, subtly textured and dreamalicious Bill Laswell-produced project which picks up where Ethiopian pop pioneers such as Mahmoud Ahmed left off. Singer Ejigayehu "Gigi" Shibabaw has a lovely voice, and her smooth style stands in welcome contrast to the normal shrillness of much of the older, classic Ethiopian pop and traditional recordings. The soundscape here is spacy, hypnotic and amorphous, akin to Sheila Chandra or Natacha Atlas in their mellower moments; although lushly produced, the album doesn't lapse into outright trip-hop -- unlike previous Gigi/Laswell collaaborations, this disc always retains a distinctively local sound. Fans of the fabled "ETHIOPIQUES" series will definitely want to check this disc out to get a sense of where that style has gone, and anyone looking for some relaxing yet substantive world music will like this as well.

Anything Gigi touches turns to gold. She could sing the alphabet backwards and it would sound good. As the liner notes will tell you, this is a "concept album" with a more classical or traditional Ethiopian sound (call and response singing phrases, traditional instruments like the washint [flute], and more acoustics). Four of the 10 songs are traditional, the others were written by Gigi. Like Gigi's last two albums, this one is also in collaboration with Bill Laswell.

This is a beautiful album with more great singing from the excellent Gigi Shibabaw, good musicianship from Ethiopian musicians, very relaxing music. Check out Gigi's other albums as well.

I have owned this cd/album for at least two years and I love it. I listen to it endlessly. It is always on my car cd player, never out of my sight. ZION ROOTS is beautifully produced. The musicians are at the top of their game, as far as I can discern. I love Gigi--everything she does. She takes me with her. One of your reviewers says she has a medium voice as far as Ethiopian singers go. Okay, but so did Billie Holiday; but it is what she did with the octave plus one that she had. Gigi goes the length. My favorite piece is "Aba Alem Lemenea," which I first heard on a limited circulation cd of music by African musicians, used to raise money for AIDS projects in Africa. From that cd, I searched Gigi out. ZION is magnificent. I love the liner notes. All of us should own it. Cheryl Clarke, Jersey City, N.J.

Really nice music to listen to while relaxing or chilling later at night. There is a scense of mystery in this and GiGi's first album which I really like also. The other positive reviews speak for them selves.

I love all Gigi's songs in this album. The music, the words,etc.
It is as good or better than her older album.

Wow, I've never heard Ethiopian music, this is fantastic, the more you listen the more it gets you, each song unfolding into the next it comes close to creating a trance, her voice has an echo of Joni Mitchell in it, the whole thing is just fab and not too overproduced , it retains more of its roots. Has tradiional and new compositions by her .

Handle by steve swallow gigi shibabaw give us a pure traditional moment of
ethiopian music song mixed wid some occidental polyrythms.
Excellent album for this woman who worked wid several artist as herbie hancock and else...

Amazing voice. Bellissima, Belle, Bella, Schön, Mzuri, or simply - she's Beautiful.