Ethiopiques 17 Tlahoun Gessesse CD

Although he is almost completely unknown to Western audiences, for Ethiopians Tlahoun Gèssèssè is "The Voice"--an absolute, unequalled icon for the entire country, rising above ethnic and linguistic divides.
Based around seven modernist pieces, arranged by the brilliant and innovative Mullatu Astagé, this disc also presents ten other songs featuring various accompaniment: the Army Band, Exhibition Band, Police Orchestra and more.

REVIEWS

From Rolling Stone, April 2004:
The Lady with the Krar & Tlahoun Gessesse
By Pat Blashill

"MORE HIGHLIGHTS FROM A STELLAR ETHIOPIAN MUSIC SERIES Now well into the double digits, the consistently amazing Ethiopiques series compiles Ethiopian pop and traditional music that was recorded in the early seventies, a brief window of artistic freedom for Ethiopian musicians between the imperial rule of Haile Selassie and a repressive communist regime known as the Derg. The sixteenth volume focuses on the spare, haunting music of Asnaqeth Werqu, who accompanies herself on the traditional Ethiopian lyre, called a krar. On the unrequited love song "Ende lyerusalem" ("Like Jerusalem"), Werqu attacks the strings of her instrument and scatters notes in every direction as she sings, in an eerie wail, "I have come to the point of desiring him and his wife at the same time." It's as minimal and tortured as the American blues of Robert Johnson - like Johnson, Werqu regards love as something that burns like acid.

"The delirious nightclub pop of Tlahoun Gessesse, the star of the seventeenth volume, is just as impassioned but sounds more like the rest of the Ethiopiques series, as it seems to be a mélange of Ethiopian traditional music and American jazz and soul. Gessesse's startling voice often leaps from a quivering moan to a scabrous shout while the tunes blue the line between secular and sacred: On "Aykedashem lebe" ("My Heart Will Not Betray You"), Gessesse sings in Amharic, but soon the lyrics dissolve into an anguished, almost supernatural "Mmm-mmmhh!" As the singer cries helplessly, "Aykedashem" becomes a case study in the sort of desire that requires an exorcism."

From the New York Times, April 5, 2004
Men Who Have Seen a Lot and Have Voices to Prove It
By Jon Pareles

"Tlahoun Gessesse has been one of Ethiopia's best-known singers since he was a teenager in the 1950's. That didn't keep him out of trouble.

"He was jailed in 1960 after a coup failed to unseat Ethiopia's emperor, Haile Selassie. His hit at the time, "Altchalkoum," was couched as a love song but received as a protest, and was banned by both Selassie and the military regime that followed him.

"All the songs on Ethiopiques 17 (Buda), Mr. Gessesse's volume of the Ethiopiques series of reissued Ethiopian pop, are from 1970-75, so 'Altchalkoum' isn't included. But the album introduces Western listeners to a striking voice: clear and impassioned, adding ornate arabesques to pop melodies and leaping to almost hysterical peaks.

"Most of the music is modal funk, with horn-section riffs and scrubbing guitar chords that send Mr. Gessesse's vocals spiraling above them. It's primitively recorded, with out-of-tune instruments that only make it seem funkier. Seven of the songs, described as 'modernist,' match Mr. Gessesse with tightly arranged small groups that add jazz harmonies to the hybrid.

"The lyrics, translated in the liner notes, are about lost love, desperate nostalgia and an uncertain future, and they're especially poignant because they were recorded in the last turbulent years of Selassie's rule.

"In one song Mr. Gessesse sings: 'Record my voice so that you can cry for me/It will be a memory on the day of my death.' He's still alive, and these recordings ought to let the world know about him."

From Pittsburgh City Paper, 3/18/2004
By Bruce Miller

"It's wonderful that we live in a musical universe where we can purchase re-issued recordings of, for instance, a Zimbabwean string band from the '30s who sound not unlike a similar ensemble from Tennessee, or a Nigerian acid-rock power trio more influenced by Grand Funk than James Brown. But it begs questions too. How should we listen?

As a nation of consumers, are we able to truly grasp recorded music's geographic impurities and learn something? Or do we merely digest them as kitsch and, like paper plates, toss them aside after we're "done"? French label Buda's bottomless Ethiopian releases[...]are giving us further reasons to consider just why we like what we do and, for those few who concern themselves with origins, note further twists on an already knotted path.

"Volume 16 in the Ethiopiques series--which has shown no dips in quality, or quantity for that matter, as volumes 18 and 19 are already on the burner--brings us the first volume of Ethiopian music both recorded during that country's all-too-brief early '70s heyday, and completely devoted to a woman. Asnaqetch Werqu was an Asmari, the Ethiopian musician caste, and initially worked as an actress and dancer in the Haile Sellassie I theater troupe--in fact, she was the first woman to be part of this troupe. But Werqu is better known for her mastery of the krar, an instrument often considered to be "the work of the devil" (not unlike the fiddle in North American folk history). The krar resembles a small harp and is placed on the knee and plucked as the singer chants a friend's praises or on-the-spot poetic improvisations. On the Ethiopiques release, Werqu weaves epic tales and woeful ballads of lost love. In fact, stripped down, krar-only versions of tunes heard elsewhere in this series pop up here, giving us a sense of the music's oral history.

"On the other hand, Volume 17--a 70-minute dose of fervent soul belter Tlahoun Gessesse--is another East African groove bomb in what now seems like the Ethiopiques tradition. Not as seductive as Mahmoud Ahmed (Volumes 6 and 7), or as frantic as Alemeyehu Ashete (Volume 9), Gessesse holds verbal court over grooves that float and bob like a funk band from Mars. Many of the horn melodies here could, and probably did, charm snakes and cast out demons. Aside from the distinction of being a pan-African sensation (the first from Ethiopia), he was also politically outspoken, getting himself arrested during the 1960 coup. (Those familiar with Volume 3 of the series have already experienced a small sampling of Gessesse, and Buda is promising more to come from this still-active superstar.)"

From SF Weekly:
"The Ethiopiques compilations highlight some of the most unique, challenging, and sensuous styles of music ever produced--a sound that is sly, slippery and designed for world-class booty shaking."

"I am really into Ethiopian pop music, which has a very individual character because the country was closed off for so many years. The Ethiopiques series has done a lot to make the riches of the music available in Europe, and I would recommend them to anyone with a passing interest in world music...the music really sounds as though something is bursting into life. It is very poignant, and very beautiful, too." - Elvis Costello