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The second LP compendium of Emahoy Tsege Mariam Gebru’s early solo piano works, recorded throughout the 1960s – finally available again. Emahoy Tsege Mariam Gebru is a true original – her compositions and unique playing style live somewhere between Erik Satie, Debussy, liturgical music of the Coptic Ethiopian Church, and Ethiopian traditional music. It is some of the most moving piano music you will ever hear!
These original compositions, performed by Emahoy Tsege Mariam Gebru herself on solo piano, were originally self-released in Germany in small editions as fundraisers for orphanages, support organizations for widows of war victims, and other philanthropic causes. We are humbled and proud to present this album in collaboration with the EMAHOY TSEGE MARIAM MUSIC PUBLISHER and Foundation, and to assist in continuing her life-long mission of using music as a vessel to care for those who have been abandoned by society, or harmed by strife.
Black vinyl LP comes in black inner-sleeves and heavy cardstock jacket with color printing and gold-foil stamping, and song notes by the composer herself. Restored and remastered by Timothy Stollenwerk.
From beloved composer Emahoy Tsege Mariam Gebru, a revelatory new album of piano pieces, unreleased or virtually inaccessible until now!
Emahoy Tsege Mariam Gebru is a true original – an Ethiopian nun whose recordings have funded orphanages back home since the early ’60s. Her compositions and unique playing style live somewhere between Erik Satie, Debussy, liturgical music of the Coptic Ethiopian Church, and Ethiopian traditional music. It is some of the most moving piano music you will ever hear.
This is the first archival release of the great composer’s recordings since the Éthiopiques series reintroduced her music to the world in 2006. Drawn from original master tapes and a nearly impossible-to-find vinyl release, Jerusalem unveils profound new facets of Emahoy Gebru’s performance and compositions.
The record picks up where the last two Mississippi releases left off, with tracks from her 1972 album Hymn of Jerusalem, of which only a handful of copies are known to exist. These include “Home of Beethoven,” “Aurora,” and a true masterpiece that stands amongst her greatest compositions, the moving “Jerusalem.” “Quand La Mer Furieuse” is the first release featuring Emahoy’s singing voice, forshadowing a vocal album planned for fall 2023. The B-Side brings us the artist’s home recordings - tracks like “Farewell Eve,” “Woigaye Don’t Cry Anymore,” and “Famine Disaster 1974” mark a bridge from liturgical work to dark and intense classical material, a new mode.
This album is released in celebration of Emahoy Gebru’s 99th birthday on December 12, 2022. Mississippi is honored to work with the Emahoy Tsege Mariam Music Publisher to continue to introduce this visionary composer to the world.
Newly remastered recordings pressed on 160gm black vinyl, heavy jacket with reproduction of 1972 artwork, song notes by the artist.
The third in Strut’s Inspiration Information studio collaboration series brings together an intriguing pairing between one of Africa’s great bandleaders, Mulatu Astatke, with the next level musicianship of The Heliocentrics collective from the mighty roster of Stones Throw / Now Again.
Known primarily through the successful ‘Ethiopiques’ album series and the film soundtrack to Jim Jarmusch’s ‘Broken Flowers’, Mulatu Astatke is one of Ethiopia’s foremost musical ambassadors. Informed by spells living and studying in the UK and the USA, his self-styled Ethio-jazz sound flourished during the “Swinging Addis” era of the late ‘60s as he successfully fused Western jazz and funk with traditional Ethiopian folk melodies, five tone scale arrangements and elements from music of the ancient Coptic church.
The Heliocentrics have become known as one of the UK’s foremost free-thinking collectives of musicians, inspired by a wide palette covering Sun Ra, James Brown, David Axelrod and all manner of psych, Afro and Eastern sounds. Now a fixture within the Stones Throw / Now Again roster, they forged their own genre-breaking directions in the astral analogue groove on their 2007 debut album, ‘Out There’.
“ It’s like going back to the feel of the ‘60s, it really feels like that,” explains Mulatu. “There’s a new composition, ‘Cha Cha’, and ‘Dewel’, heavily influenced by an Ethiopian Coptic Church composer called Yard. The band took it and added what they feel. It’s a nice experiment.”
The second LP compendium of Emahoy Tsege Mariam Gebru’s early solo piano works, recorded throughout the 1960s – finally available again. Emahoy Tsege Mariam Gebru is a true original – her compositions and unique playing style live somewhere between Erik Satie, Debussy, liturgical music of the Coptic Ethiopian Church, and Ethiopian traditional music. It is some of the most moving piano music you will ever hear!
These original compositions, performed by Emahoy Tsege Mariam Gebru herself on solo piano, were originally self-released in Germany in small editions as fundraisers for orphanages, support organizations for widows of war victims, and other philanthropic causes. We are humbled and proud to present this album in collaboration with the EMAHOY TSEGE MARIAM MUSIC PUBLISHER and Foundation, and to assist in continuing her life-long mission of using music as a vessel to care for those who have been abandoned by society, or harmed by strife.
Black vinyl LP comes in black inner-sleeves and heavy cardstock jacket with color printing and gold-foil stamping, and song notes by the composer herself. Restored and remastered by Timothy Stollenwerk.
From beloved composer Emahoy Tsege Mariam Gebru, a revelatory new album of piano pieces, unreleased or virtually inaccessible until now!
Emahoy Tsege Mariam Gebru is a true original – an Ethiopian nun whose recordings have funded orphanages back home since the early ’60s. Her compositions and unique playing style live somewhere between Erik Satie, Debussy, liturgical music of the Coptic Ethiopian Church, and Ethiopian traditional music. It is some of the most moving piano music you will ever hear.
This is the first archival release of the great composer’s recordings since the Éthiopiques series reintroduced her music to the world in 2006. Drawn from original master tapes and a nearly impossible-to-find vinyl release, Jerusalem unveils profound new facets of Emahoy Gebru’s performance and compositions.
The record picks up where the last two Mississippi releases left off, with tracks from her 1972 album Hymn of Jerusalem, of which only a handful of copies are known to exist. These include “Home of Beethoven,” “Aurora,” and a true masterpiece that stands amongst her greatest compositions, the moving “Jerusalem.” “Quand La Mer Furieuse” is the first release featuring Emahoy’s singing voice, forshadowing a vocal album planned for fall 2023. The B-Side brings us the artist’s home recordings - tracks like “Farewell Eve,” “Woigaye Don’t Cry Anymore,” and “Famine Disaster 1974” mark a bridge from liturgical work to dark and intense classical material, a new mode.
This album is released in celebration of Emahoy Gebru’s 99th birthday on December 12, 2022. Mississippi is honored to work with the Emahoy Tsege Mariam Music Publisher to continue to introduce this visionary composer to the world.
Newly remastered recordings pressed on 160gm black vinyl, heavy jacket with reproduction of 1972 artwork, song notes by the artist.
There is perhaps no woman more cherished in modern Ethiopian history than Asnakech Worku. As a musician, actress, dancer and cultural icon, Asnakech inspired and challenged society for decades, until her death in 2011. From her beginnings as Ethiopia’s first theater actress in 1952 to her acclaimed film appearances to her days as a club owner-turned-master musician, Asnakech’s inimitable confidence and charm made her a household name. She earned endless accolades across the artistic spectrum.
She made seminal recordings of unforgettable original compositions, as well as legendary renditions of traditional songs, that became national staples. With a singular sense of style, glamour and sex appeal that sometimes stunned mainstream society, Asnakech wore clothes no one else wore and said things no one else said. Staid notions of how women should dress and behave didn’t apply to her. Battling a mentality that until the early 1950s had men wearing dresses to play female roles in the theater, Asnakech became a national treasure on her own terms.
Her family wasn’t pleased with Asnakech becoming an azmari—an itinerant praise musician who sings, often in bars, for tips—and didn’t bother her, especially after Emperor Haile Selassie I began to emphasize theater and music in society, officially legitimizing her career. Asnakech became an internationally-celebrated performer of Ethiopia’s ancient harp, the krar, making her one of the most visible female musicians of the 20th century. All this while leaving controversy, broken hearts and a changed cultural landscape in her wake.
In 1975, keyboardist and bandleader Hailu Mergia got a call from the owner of Misratch Music Shop to do a recording with Asnakech and he went for it. This recording is a nearly-forgotten artifact of the remarkable icon’s singular legacy, remastered and available outside Ethiopia for the first time. It also provides a rare glimpse into Mergia’s work as a arranger-sideman in the Addis Ababa music scene.
The Krar
The krar is one of the oldest and most iconic traditional instruments in Ethiopia and Eritrea. A lyre, or harp, with 6 strings attached to a cloth-wrapped wooden crossbar, the sound emits from a resonator bowl covered with animal skin. The instrument comes in a variety of sizes and has relatives in the Middle East and Mediterranean as well as other parts of East and Central Africa. Used for secular music, the krar is normally accompanied by at least one vocalist and plays monophonic melodic lines using the region's traditional pentatonic scales, called kignit. These characteristic scales form the basis of the sound listeners worldwide now recognize. They are also the names of well-known songs: tizita, bati, ambassel and anchi hoye lene, of which there are numerous recorded versions. The krar has been around for centuries, likely introduced to the Kingdom of Axum in Northern Ethiopia via the Nile River a little less than 2000 years ago.
Memories of Asnakech
by Hailu Mergia
Asnakech had a club uptown—in Dejach Wube area, a popular part, there were a bunch of clubs. It was the late 1950s in the Ethiopian calendar, so probably the mid-1960s. I saw her there for the first time, not in the theater. She used to perform for friends there, sometimes we stayed there after hours. She would play krar. Back then she was very young, haha. Whatever you would request, she would play, many traditional songs, solo. Sometimes some guys would come there and play with her.
Someone took me there just to have fun. I was not a known guy back then, she was a famous lady. So I introduced myself but I was just a fan. I knew her name but hadn’t seen her but I’d heard her music on the radio. She said, “Oh you’re a new guy, good for you,” the kind of supporting things she usually said to a young musician. After that, when I used to play in Zula club or next door to her club at Patrice Lumumba club (Acegedech Nightclub), she used to come and dance with her friends once in a while.
After so many years, in the mid 1970s, the owner of this music store contact me and he told me that he is planning to have a cassette with Asnakech. So I made a handshake deal and we started the recording.
I’m proud that I played with her, that we did this album. It’s nice to play with somebody you admire, to be able to say, I played with Asnakech when she was great. She was a very polite person, always talking good about other people. In particular, to me she was a very modern lady. If you’re not a dead person your heart is gonna beat, young or old, when you see that lady dressing, any kind of dress western dress or traditional dress. She was a modern lady, dressed in the latest designer dresses, more than anyone else back then. Oh! That lady was different. She was a dancer and an actress. At the same time she was very beautiful and everybody talked about her. She had a style when she smoked, the way she took the cigarette in her fingers, it was an art. Her hair was so beautiful, long hair. Asnakech? Forget it, man.
Some of the songs are traditional, some are her compositions. You can listen to songs like these at home with family, while sitting or reading, in the after-hours at the club, while you’re washing the dishes. When you’re driving, a bunch of people listen while driving. It depends what time when you want to listen. Some people they listen to this kind of love music when they have a good relationship, somebody passed away or somebody stopped dating each other and have emotional flashbacks to what happened in their lives. Sometimes I listen to this music while I sit by the fireplace and I take some whisky, during the holiday time for relaxation. You can listen to this music any time. Especially for lovers.
*On the occasion of the first anniversary of her passing, Asnakech's family and friends held a memorial. This is the text accompanying that event, composed by Asnakech's biographer, Getachew Debalke.
We would like to present our greetings. Please, be present with your spouse as we mark one year of grieving for the artist Asnakech Worku on September 6, 2015 E.C. [Ethiopian Calendar], at 12:30 in Kidst Selassie Cathedral church.
Address :- 6 kilo near Egypt Embassy
Short Biography
Ethiopia lost a great queen of art. Today marks one year since our loss of the famous and respectful artist who combines music and theatre for the first time. This day marks a year of deep grief. Yes, both of them lost Asnakech. They lost their biggest blessings. From now on she will not be there. But, her children will be with us forever. This is the short biography of this great artist.
Artist Asnakech Worku was born in 1926 E.C., in Addis Ababa, Gedam Sefer, near Sidst Kilo. She was only three years old at the time her mother passed away. Due to this, her godmother took her and raised her.
At that time getting education nearby was impossible. There was no other choice than spending time with religious clergymen. Due to this, Asnakech started to learn letters and she was able to finish the book of David.
Her biography tells that, starting from a young age, Asnakech grew up singing living with her godmother. Singing sad songs when she felt low, singing alone when she felt happy, and dancing when singing were her natural gifts. Memorizing songs was also one of her gifts.
Her hope was to start learning in the only school found nearby called Etege Menen girls’ school. After she tried hard to get in, she was asked to shave her head for a medical checkup. But she refused and didn’t start studying there.
She sang a song about the horrifying truth of migration. Asnakech got the admiration of German journalists.
On January 27, 2000, there was a ceremony for women in the arts. Asnakech was the only Ethiopian representative. She performed an amazing show using only one instrument, the krar. She got an award for that.
Asnakech Worku, the woman of love, the talented artist, the symbol of talent, has performed her plays in various countries. A few are stated below:
-“Aris," a play by a French director
-“Agote Banya,” a play at Alliance Française
-On a play called “Zetegn Fetena” et cetera…
In 1991, Asnakech received a lifetime achievement award from the media.
Asnakech used to dance to traditional music, she used to sing, she used to perform in plays, she used to dance to modern dance, and she was just gifted. Art is created by mankind. These harmonious and beautiful memories of Asnakech were created by her. Her beautiful works will be remembered forever.
Birth and death are God’s power. Mankind has only a right to live the short time given to him. Even when we are alive, we live on the verge of death. This kind, generous and talented artist Asnakech, was sick for a long time. She was battling death. Her generous friends, her co-actors, were also part of the battle. They were by her side for years. They were fighting with her. But today, by the will of God, they and Asnakech lost the battle.
On September 4, 2004 E.C., while receiving her treatment, the 78-year-old Asnakech passed away.
On September 5, 2004 E.C, her funeral was held on Kidst Sellasie Cathedral ye Arbegnoch mekane mekabr. We would like to give our condolences for her family, her friends, her co-actors and her fans.
Songs
A1. ጅንዬው Jinyew — A proud person, macho guy, always proud of himself. The kind of guy some women like.
A2. ቼ በለው Tche Belew — Tche Belew refers to making your horse or mule speed up, used for going into battle. Giddy-up! The scale is different from the other versions I’ve done. This is not a pentatonic scale, this is bati scale. It’s a patriotic song.
A3. አውቄው በነበር Awkew Beneber — If I had known him earlier. When he came to her, he was nice and then when she became closer to him he became a bad guy. I wish I had known he had this kind of character, is what she is saying.
B1. ባይኔ ላይ ይሄዳል Bayne Lay Yidal — I always see him walking around in my mind. She daydreams about this guy while she is sitting by herself.
B2. ምንጊዜም የኔ ነው Mingizem Yene New — He is mine forever.
C1. ተው በጊዜ ግባ Tew Begize Giba — It’s too late, don’t stay out too late, come home early. In the old days sometimes women would refer to their husband as a friend or brother or family member. So I think she is talking about her brother.
C2. ሣቅ ብለህ አስቀኝ Sak Bleh Askegn — Laugh and let me laugh. Say something to make me laugh, don’t be boring. She wants to hear the man say something to make her smile.
C3. አብዮተኛው ጀግና Abyotegnaw Jegna — The hero of the revolution. She is singing in appreciation of the heroes and fighters who protect the country’s borders. If she didn’t have this song, this cassette wouldn’t be released. Because at that time the government [Derg Regime] and the army were supposed to get some kind of feedback from musicians and listeners to make them feel special, to boost morale.
D1. ካንድ የረጋ ደግ ነው Kand Yerega Deg New — It’s good to stay with one person. In life, if you jump from one person to another, it is not as good.
D2. መች አልኩኝ ሌላ ሰው Mech Alkugn Lela Sew — When did I say I want another person? I want you, I don’t need another person. After we finished the whole recording it was only nine songs so the guy wanted to balance the tape and he probably recorded this song with her at a separate time. Or he could have picked it up from a previous session, I don’t recall now… It was a long time ago!
Ejigayehu Shibabaw was born in 1974 in Chagni, northwestern Ethiopia and by pursuing a career as a singer, went against her father’s strict, traditional gender roles. As Gigi, she embraced the same musical freedom she had strived for in her personal life, incorporating the Ethiopian church, funk, hip-hop, West and South African music into her work. She first settled in Nairobi, then Addis Ababa, where she quickly established herself as one of the city’s leading singers. A move to San Francisco in 1998 led to a long and fruitful creative partnership with bassist and producer Bill Laswell.
Around the same time, Chris Blackwell had stepped away from Island Records to start the art house film company and label Palm Pictures. He took an interest in Gigi and together with Laswell, pulled together an all-star cast of musicians for her self-titled US debut album, including Herbie Hancock, Pharoah Sanders and Wayne Shorter. It won international critical acclaim, not just for its musicianship but for making Gigi a “defining voice for the Ethiopian expatriate community”, as journalist Tyran Grillo praises in his Time Capsule liner notes. From the nation-defining 1896 victory over Italian invaders to the quiet revolutionaries who wear simple shemma garments, Grillo believes the themes in Gigi make it “a shower of sunlight on her homeland for those ignorant of its struggles.”
After its success, Blackwell encouraged them to go back into the studio to rethink the album and Illuminated Audio was born. “Anyone can make a voice sound worldly”, Grillo remarks, “but rare are those who can make one sound inner-worldly.” Gigi was clear with Laswell to give her vocals a minor role “because it’s already been done.” Instead her Amharic verse is fleeting, exhaling through the textures like ghostly fragments; soaring yet muted. Yet the album is still titled under her name, an assertion by Laswell of her central role in the album’s creation. Not only was it a fully endorsed project by Gigi, but she would be present throughout its development, giving feedback on half-finished ideas as Laswell played them back in the studio. “It works perfectly”, she reflected after the album’s release. “We wanted to capture the whole spirit of each track, and Bill’s remixes create a different music language that really puts you in a pleasant place”.
This new vocabulary takes its lead from a technical approach that Laswell had been perfecting during a furtive creative period at the turn of the millennium. Much like his ambient interpretations of Miles Davis (Panthalassa, 1998), Bob Marley (Dreams of Freedom, 1997), and Carlos Santana (Divine Light, 2001), Laswell approached Illuminated Audio by returning to the original multitrack masters. Gigi wasn’t just reworked, but recomposed into an expansive lattice of instruments, submerged in a watery ambience of dub and trance undercurrents.
Sonically, this new language that Gigi refers to, is manifested by the original album’s more understated parts being pushed to the fore. Explaining his contrasting methods, Laswell saw Gigi as being “put together in a way that fits”. Contrastingly, in Illuminated Audio, “a lot of things that I featured in the remix weren’t as audible in the original.” Instrumentation laying near-dormant, deep in the mix, are brought to the fore: the acid rock guitar and Wayne Shorter’s saxophone on ‘Tew Ante Sew’, Graham Haynes’ flugelhorn on ‘Nafekeñ’, Laswell’s bass on ‘Kahn’, the melodica in Mengedegna or the floating synths and talking drums in ‘Gud Fella’.
Brought to his attention by mentor DJ Nori, Hidaka describes Illuminated Audio as a “masterful sonic exploration into ethereal ambience and dub” and made sure this reissue also contained a full remaster to give its “deep musicality” much better dynamics and density in the overall sound. Hidaka admits that Laswell’s music “is sometimes so out-there, it is often misunderstood” and, indeed, to dub album non-believers this might seem like a prolific producer imposing himself on another artist’s work; eternally developing rearrangements that never quite get to its destination. But that’s missing its true power and triumph. This is more than the reissue of a remix, but “a wholly unique musical entity”, as Hidaka describes. Illuminated Audio refers to the illuminated manuscripts that comprise the major part of Ethiopian art and its new compositions stand in proud solitude as a rare body of reworks that both informs and enhances their originals.