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Éthiopiques 24: Golden Years Of Modern Ethiopian Music 1969-1975
*2024 stock* As was the case with Ethiopiques 1 and 3, this 24th CD in the Ethiopiques collection presents a selection of powerful pieces from the historical Amha Records catalogue. We meet again with such artists as Ayaléw Mèsfin, Gétatchèw Kassa and Sèyfou Yohannes, and are introduced to other artists as yet unreleased or hardly known in the West, among them Menelik Wèsnatchèw, Seyoum Gèbrèyès, Tamrat Molla and Wubshèt Fisseha. Bonus tracks: Two pieces by the young Mulatu Astatqé, recorded in …
Éthiopiques 22: More Vintage! 1972-1974
*2024 stock* Alèmayèhu Eshèté is no less than one of the great voices of the heyday of modern Ethiopian music -- the Swinging Sixties which, in Ethiopia, went on until the fall of the Emperor Haile Sellassie I in 1974. On a par with Tlahoun Gèssèssè, Bzunèsh Bèqèlè or Mahmoud Ahmed, Alèmayèhu is a star at the top of the constellation that once lit up the wild nights in the capital city Addis Ababa. The singer, as remarkable for his frenetic rock numbers as for his heart-rending ballads, has, by …
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, serpentine voice, at the same time raucous and velvety, Mahmoud Ahmed has invented a world of uncertain borders, an improbable mix of Eastern-African rhythmic lines, mysterious laments with refined ornamentation and melodies of unexpected Indian modula…
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 fireworks before they were brutally extinguished by the dictatorship. 1969-78: this near-decade was undoubtedly the golden age of modern Ethiopian music, with its swinging, thunderous or simply gigantic brasses and historic singers adapting and rearrangin…
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 Americanism, he earned himsef such nicknames as The Ethiopian James Brown or the Abyssinian Elvis. With his dazzling stage presence, nimble voicebox and wicked pompadour, he is a strutting show-off, straight out of American Graffiti or Saturday Night F…
Éthiopiques 8: Swinging Addis
*2024 stock* In the 1960s there was a Swinging Addis just as there was a Swinging London. In Ethiopia, as in Europe bor the USA, the first generation born after the war made their noisy, colourful breakthrough onto the scene. A veritable cultural revolution rather than a simple generational conflict. With music as its detonator and its common denominator. This volume aims to collect the clearest examples of soul, R'n'B and even twist in the recordings of the Ethiopian 'sixties'. The quintessence…
Éthiopiques 7: Erè Mèla Mèla
*2024 stock* Erè mèla mèla was the very first record of modern Ethiopian music released in Europe (Crammed Discs, Brussells, 1986). It is only logical that it should be reissued today, expanded and remastered, in the Ethiopiques series. This volum 7 of Ethiopiques includes all of the Mahmoud Ahmed's recordings released in 1975 by Kaifa Records, i.e. the LP KF 20 plus 2 tracks released on another 45 and two additional songs included in the first Crammed release, two masterpieces from an album rel…
Éthiopiques 4: Ethio Jazz & Musique Instrumentale 1969-1974)
*2024 stock* In the Ethiopian musical world, Mulatu Astatqé is a typical, totaly unique personality, a legend unto himself. For 30 years, he has been an inescapabe presence, a virtual statue casting a long shadow over the Ethiopian scene. His true singularity resides in his efforts in instrumental music in a country where musical culture and tradition are strangers to it. Note: Jim Jarmush put some of these hypnotic instrumentals to great use in the soundtrack of his film Broken Flowers
Éthiopiques 3: Golden Years Of Modern Ethiopian Music 1969-1975
*2024 stock* The Amha Records label issued approx 250 tracks in six years (1969-1975). 8 songs on this "Ethiopiques 3" CD are accompanied by bands affiliated with the Police. Indeed, until the very end of the 1960s, Ethiopia had no independant modern bands. Musical life was wholly dominated by the institutional bands attachd to either the Imperial Body Guard, the Police, the Army, the ciry of Addis Ababa, Agher Feqer Mahber or the Hayle Sellasie Theatre. Each of these institutions developed seve…
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 that they should set up their own businesses and take a cut on the drinks, instead of getting by on tips earned singing their way from one bar and tedjbèt (taverns serving tedj, the local mead) to another. (…) They have taken over the city by giving …
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 burst and one of the main founders of the modernist movement, which swept the Ethiopian scene during the end of the rule of the Emperor Haile Sellassie. In six years (1969-1975), Amha issued approx 250 tracks. From his first recordings, he dispayed a…
Waa Dardaaran
*2024 stock* Sahra Halgan is an iconic artist from Somaliland, an independent country since 1991 but not recognized by the international community, formerly a British protectorate in northern Somalia. The granddaughter of a singer and poet, she devoted herself to singing and music in her teens, defying tribal and family conventions.
It was in the context of the war against the dictator Siad Barre's terrible repression in the 80s that Sahra earned her nickname "Halgan", the fighter, and her songs…
Amrak Seedna & Abtal Wa Harameyah
Wewantsounds is delighted to reissue Ziad Rahbani's cult album Amrak Seedna & Abtal Wa Harameyah, released in 1987. Ziad Rahbani is a living legend of Arab music and a cultural icon in his native Lebanon. An accomplished musician, pianist and producer, he is also a celebrated playwright and political activist. The album Amrak Seedna & Abtal Wa Harameyah, released in 1987 on the Beirut-based Relax-in label, is the soundtrack to two plays written by the renowned Lebanese playwright and actor Anto…
Original Soundtrack Album Of Nagham Fi Hayati
Wewantsounds is delighted to reissue Farid el Atrache's cult album 'Nagham Fi Hayati' another cornerstone of Arabic Music released in 1974 and the soundtrack of the eponymous film starring El Atrache and Mervat Amin. Nicknamed the King of Oud, El Atrache is one of the giants of Egyptian music with Oum Kalthoum, Abdel Halim Hafez and Warda. Composed of four tracks showcasing El Atrache's versatility, the album which contains the monster groove 'Hebina Hebina' happens to be one of Brian Eno's favo…
Afro Exotique 2 - Further Adventures In The Leftfield, Africa 1975-87
After "Afro Exotique - Adventures In The Leftfield, Africa 1972-88" was enthusiastically embraced by heads, collectors and core Africa Seven enthusiasts alike, we dived back down into the vaults, and hope we've come up with another volume of listenable esoterica from roughly the same period. "The Quest", courtesy of fleeting 1978 leftfield supergroup Afro Cult Foundation (featuring Joni Haastrup, Remi Kabaka and friends) sets the tone-bar high and sideways, with 4.50 mins of atmospheric, effecte…
Psyché
Drop a needle on Psyché's debut double-sider and you'll see visions, or rather Mediterranean visions, be they of waves of heat shimmering above dunes of sand, or of women dancing around a bonfire on a rocky plain, or of bushy cliffs overlooking emerald-green and turquoise sea. The name Psyché is of course ancient Greek for 'soul' or 'mind', signifying the band's love of psychedelic funk, but also the wide range of Mediterranean influences – from Southern Europe to the Balkan Peninsula, and from …
Cumbia Mahàre / Ophis
Drop a needle on Psyché's debut double-sider and you'll see visions, or rather Mediterranean visions, be they of waves of heat shimmering above dunes of sand, or of women dancing around a bonfire on a rocky plain, or of bushy cliffs overlooking emerald-green and turquoise sea. The name Psyché is of course ancient Greek for 'soul' or 'mind', signifying the band's love of psychedelic funk, but also the wide range of Mediterranean influences – from Southern Europe to the Balkan Peninsula, and from …