Folk /
Nicole / Overwhelmed By The Unexplained
We invite you to enter the strange and enchanting world of Nino Gvilia, where nothing is quite what it seems. These two ep's (presented on one disc in March 2024) draw you deep into her dreamlike sound-world of hushed late night atmospherics and surr…
Éthiopiques 29: Mastawesha
*2024 stock* Kassa (1927-1973) belongs to the long tradition of melancholy raconteurs with a decided gift of gab. The unique embrace of his deep voice heightens the emotion generated by the hum of his lyrics. For Ethiopians he is, along with such oth…
Éthiopiques 27: Centennial Of The First Ethiopian Music Recordings
*2024 stock* Centennial of the First Ethiopian Recordings Double CD The life and work of Tessema Eshete, the first Ethiopian singer to record commercially. 32 historic songs recorded in Berlin in 1910
Éthiopiques 26: Mahmoud Ahmed & The Imperial Bodyguard Band (1972-74)
*2024 stock* “An authentic legend in Ethiopia, Mahmoud Ahmed has set the bases of a truly original musical style in that he synthesizes the most diverse influences into a language both typical and universal. With his haunting, husky and velvety voice…
Éthiopiques 20: Live In Addis
*2024 stock* Russ Gershon and his Grammy-nominated Either/Orchestra have included many Ethiopian pieces into their repertoire in recent years. In January 2004, the Boston big band travelled to Addis for a dream-come-true concert featuring prestigious…
Éthiopiques 19: Alèmyé
*2024 stock* «An authentic legend in Ethiopia, Mahmoud Ahmed has laid down the basis of a music style which is resolutely original in the way it synthesizes the most diverse influences into a language both typical and universal. With his haunting, se…
Éthiopiques 18: Asguèbba!
*2024 stock* «Asguèbba!» is the Azmari’s cry urging listeners to enter into the dance, an invitation carrying the same sexual innuendo as Latino’s ¡Va dentro! The recordings on this CD are intended as a continuation of those in Tètchawèt! (Ethiopique…
Paper Jays
While their name may conjure images of avian origami, rolled cannabis, or cut-up 10th letters, Paper Jays are an instrumental music body from Rhode Island that became fully formed during the session for their forthcoming eponymous release on ESP-disk…
Astroturf Noise
Astroturf Noise exists at the intersection of free improvisation, effects-heavy noise music, and American roots music.
Éthiopiques 17: Tlahoun Gèssèssè
*2024 stock* To Ethiopian audiences, Tlahoun Gèssèssè is THE VOICE, even more so than Mahmoud Ahmed, Alèmayèhu Eshèté or Mulatu Astatqé. Endowed with a phenomenal, innate vocal talent, he has been the asbsolute and unequalled icon for an entire count…
Éthiopiques 13: Ethiopian Groove - The Golden Seventies
*2024 stock* An augmented, improved and remastered edition of the legendary anthology of Ethiopian groove that was issued in the 1990s. This selection is a tribute to the haydays of Ethiopian music and reproduces the final salvos of the musical firew…
Éthiopiques 12: Konso Music And Songs - Kirba Afaa Xonso
*2024 stock* The Ethiopiques series aims to make Westerners discover the missing link in African music. The great Italian musicologist Enrico Castelli has devoted this recording to the Konso, an ethnic group living at the border with Sudan. This pano…
Éthiopiques 10: Tezeta - Ethiopian Blues & Ballads
*2024 stock* Emptiness, melancholy, nostalgia; doom and gloom, morbid musings; heartache or homesickness: such is the stock in trade of the misery and mournful memories expressed by the song Tezeta - Ethiopia's majestic hymn to the blues. Etymologic…
Giorgos Katsaros
Big Tip! Our obsession with underground Greek music continues with 10 ultra-rare recordings of heartbreak and vice from rembetiko legend Giorgos Katsaros. Katsaros, who by some accounts lived to be over 100 years old, carried the old songs of Greece …
Éthiopiques 9 (1969-1974)
*2024 stock* The Alèmayèhu songs already presented in Ethiopiques 3 and 8 have given a foretaste of this outstanding stylist of Ethiopian pop, a singer as remarkable for his frenetic rock numbers as for his heartrending ballads. By dint of rampant Am…
Éthiopiques 6: Almaz
*2024 stock* For many years everything we knew about Mahmoud Ahmed (and Ethiopian music in general) was limited to the cult album Erè Mèla Mèla (Ethiopiques 7 CD 829802), recorded in 1975 but released for the first time in Europe in 1986. Mahmoud's f…
Éthiopiques 5: Tigrigna Music (Tigra / Eritrea 1970-1975)
*2024 stock* "Tigrigna music" refers to music of Tigray and Eritrea. The majorities in each of these territories share the same language, Tigrigna. Tigrigna music, dominant in Tigray and Eritrea, is quite distinct, both rhythmically and melodically, …
Stars Of Tennessee
"Well into the third decade of their existence as a musical juggernaut, a new (or at least semi-new) quartet iteration of Nashville's most aggressively shambolic band, The Cherry Blossoms, has recorded this dandy taster of a new LP. And Feeding Tube …
Éthiopiques 2: Tetchawet!
*2024 stock* Originally wandering minstrels, sharp-tongued peddlers who roamed the old Abyssinian countryside, many azmaris more or less settled down after the founding of Addis-Ababa just over a century ago. The cleverest of them quickly understood …
Éthiopiques 1 - Golden Years Of Modern Ethiopian Music 1969-1975
*2024 stock* 1969-1978. The main body of Ethiopian records was produced in less than one decade: all in all, just under 500 45s and around 30 LP albums. Amha Eshèté, creator of the Amha Records Label, was the driving force behind this brief creative …