Description
These recordings were made in the Empire of Ethiopia in 1971. The music recorded in Addis Ababa uses masenko fiddles, craar and bagana lyres, washint flutes and kabaro drums. There is folk music played in Addis Ababa tej beit bars with vocals, craar, masenko, washint and kabaro, Ethiopian Christian songs accompanied by the bagana large 'Harp of David' and Mary Armede's craar accompanied Amharic sung poetry. There are Afar chants and flutes from the Danakil Desert, Anuak thumb piano, Nuer harp and dance drumming and a Fila Flute Dance from the Sudan and Kenya borderlands.
Ethiopian Musics 1971 is one of those albums where each musical moment is pure, intoxicating gold, while also being greater through the sum of its parts. There are the many songs, forming a rich tapestry of remarkable range across the double album (moments that wondrously flirt with sonic abstraction; hypnotic rhythms; pulsing chant; melodies that, in structural arrangement and tonal combination, help us reframe how such a thing might be understood, and a great deal more), each imbued with a remarkable directness and emotive sensibility, and there is the stunning quality of these recordings themselves, transporting each sound to our ears as though we intimately share its creator's space, while being imbued with the pure heart and remarkable spirit with which they were made. As we said before, it's little wonder, once heard, why these recordings and this music feels as fresh and relevant (enduring more than 50 years) today as when they were made. Once again, Sub Rosa has raised the bar with this essential addition to the incredible work that Ragnar Johnson and Ralph Harrisson did back in Ethiopia during 1971, radically expanding our access to the sounds that they captured with this stunning, beautifully produced double LP
A few words from the recordists: 'The recordings that Ragnar Johnson and Ralph Harrisson made in Ethiopia in 1971 have preserved the skill of the musicians and the beauty of the music for posterity. After more than fifty years the music lives on for the listener.'
