Mahmoud Ahmed Gets Me Jumping!
By Mr. Moderator on Apr 13, 2008
As some of you may recall, sometime last sunmer I discovered a series available through eMusic called Ethiopiques, covering Ethiopian pop and folk music from the '60s through the mid-70s. Or some timeframe like that. I'm not good with dates and remembering the historical events within which this collection was framed. What's important to me is how quickly I took to large swaths of whatever I downloaded from this 20-plus-CD set. I'm usually not that apt to dig "world music," but this Ethiopian stuff had a lot going for it. Despite the fact that I couldn't understand a word of any of the singers I'd been sampling, the recordings spoke to me. It was refreshing. I felt unusually open minded while, at the same time, I felt like I'd been listening to a sound that my soul had been calling for since I was a boy trying to float beyond all the crap and confusion of my world.
Shortly after stumbling across this stuff I was reminded that this was some of the music Jeffrey Wright's character in Broken Flowers would play Bill Murray's character. Early in the film, if memory serves, these Ethiopian tunes created a cool, hip, slightly familiar, slightly exotic vibe. As I continued downloading this stuff, I felt the presence of Wright's character as well as the presence of so many real-life friends over the years who'd turned me onto something new yet surprisingly familiar.
As I began digging deeper into these new sounds I started trying to place names with my favorite songs. It's a difficult task. The Ethiopian language frequently does not order letters in ways English speakers are accustomed to seeing. Luckily the artist whose music first grabbed my attention had perhaps the easiest name to remember: Mahmoud Ahmed. You may recall the following song, from my first post on my Ethiopian journey.
Mahmoud Ahmed, "Almaz Men Eda New"
Man, this Mahmoud Ahmed gets me jumping! I love the repetition and the tumbling percussion. I love the organ drones, like something out of "Tomorrow Never Knows". I love the horn parts, the way they stagger in and out of the songs. I love Ahmed's urgent, insistent vocal delivery, a delivery that, refreshingly, avoids any of the threatening, boasting, or otherwise macho aspects of the great James Brown or Chuck D. Ahmed's sound is joyous, playful, obsessive, and ultimately peaceful.
More tracks after the jump!
Follow up:
Of course, I don't have a clue what "Almaz Men Eda New" is about. For all I know he's joyously asking us to take a machete to a colonel's head. When this stuff plays, my feet and fingers are tapping, my breathing quickens, and my heart races. It's music that opens the gates for my hyperactive inner child to run free, right up there with the best stuff on XTC's English Settlement, Pere Ubu's Dub Housing, Captain Beefheart's Bat Chain Puller, Ornette Coleman's Dancing in Your Head, and Terry Riley's A Rainbow in Curved Air. There are times for letting one's hair down, and there are times for letting one's hair stand on end. The music of Mahmoud Ahmed puts sets my hair on end.
Here are a few more tracks I've been digging. Even the mellower tracks vibrate, or buzz! Some day I'll look up biographical information on this guy, but he's already a soul I feel I know.
9 comments
I have six of the Ethiopiques collections, and I haven't found a bad one yet. Some of the stuff is more rootsy, i.e., less rocking, but it's all good. I like the one called Swinging Addis, which has only one track by Mahmoud but a bunch by the awesomely funky Alemayehu Eschete. Ethiopian Groove is great too.
I was just listening to NPR while having breakfast, and the show Studio 360 ended with a piece on the bandleader best known for his instrumental stuff - I think Vol. 4 of that series is all him. Of course, I can't picture what his name is. You're right, I haven't downloaded a clunker from this series yet. That Swinging Addis collection is great.
Speaking of the rootsy stuff, there's an especially good volume of some kind of folk music with mostly women singing in chorus with semi-grating Yoko Ono voices. I think the main musical accompaniment is some kind of loosely strung acoustic guitar with handclaps. Do you know which stuff I'm talking about? It's great.
Next I may take the plunge and download more tracks from Vol. 21, I believe, which covers some Ethiopian nun who plays meditative, solo piano pieces. She kind of reminds me of Bill Evans. That's normally NOT anywhere near my bag, but the first song I tried by her, "The Song of the Sea", is beautiful. Bill Evans, come to think of it, is easy for me to enjoy too. Maybe I like meditative solo piano stuff better than I think.
Speaking of the rootsy stuff, there's an especially good volume of some kind of folk music with mostly women singing in chorus with semi-grating Yoko Ono voices. I think the main musical accompaniment is some kind of loosely strung acoustic guitar with handclaps. Do you know which stuff I'm talking about? It's great.I think you're talking about vol. 5 -- Tigrigna Music. I never noticed your comparison before, but she does sing the way John would have wanted it to be.
The stuff on Sublime Frequencies is mostly field recordings and radio transcriptions that Bishop has done during his travels. The admirable albeit sometimes slightly maddening fact about the SF releases is that if Bishop knows nothing at all about who, when or where this music comes from, he'll just say so. Admirable because I find the whole Nonesuch Explorer/ethnography aspect of such releases tiresome at best and a bit patronizing at worst, and I really like the fact that he includes pop music from these countries on the albums as well. Maddening because I have a lot of "Unknown artist"/"Unknown title" combos in my iTunes folder.
Looking forward to the next Nixon's Head show, where I expect you the Mod will be wearing a dashiki and one of those multi-colored turban-like African hats trying to conduct "The Can't Touch Us" in 5/4.
Comment feed for this postComments are not allowed from anonymous visitors.
| « iPod Fatigue...or Revenge of the Nerds! | Albums That Were Adversely Affected by Reduced Graphics in Reissue and/or Digital Release » |
