HAILU MERGIA - Hailu Mergia & His Classical Instrument: Shemonmuanaye

Gently spaced-out and thoroughly out of time, this CD remaster of a cassette recorded in 1985 and now reissued by Brian Shimkovitz's Awesome Tapes From Africa label (once a blog, ATFA now selectively officially licenses their finds for release) is quite a find indeed, unfurling at a leisurely pace while its pattering drum machine, insistent accordion runs and digital handclaps entrance and invigorate.

"In Ethiopia, Mergia found fame as an organist and keyboardist in the soul and jazz ensemble Walias Band. Four years later, while playing in the ex-Walias Band ensemble Zula Band, he released Hailu Mergia & His Classical Instrument, an instrumental record dominated by a sound that hadn’t been heard in much popular Ethiopian music for decades: the accordion. Amplified instruments had come along and usurped the squeezebox, which had been de rigueur in the 1950s. But it wasn’t a total throwback: Mergia recorded it with a Moog synthesizer, a Rhodes electric piano, and a drum machine, piecing together a drifting, meditative, and thoroughly psychedelic interpretation of traditional acoustic Ethiopian music." - Washington City Paper