Ethiopian mixtape by Marc Teissier du Cros [2012]

originaly posted : here

       Marc Teissier du Cros, one half of the brains behind Paris label The Record Makers,  home to some of Paris’ strongest music acts the likes of Sébastien Tellier lent his talents this past July to summer festival Les Siestes Electroniques.

     Mining the music archive of the Left Bank’s Musée du Quai Branly, Teissier du Cros complies Ethiopia!  an Ethio Jazz & modern music mixtape featuring some of the genres biggest names Mahmoud Ahmed, Bahta Gebre-Heywet, Tilahoun Gessesse, Mulatu Astatke, Mohammed Jimmy  Mohammed and more.

     Without a doubt the inclusion of tracks like ‘Tezeta’ by Mahmoud Ahmed makes this mixtape tug hard on nostalgic strings for any listener familiar with the Addis Ababa music scene of the 50′s, 60′s and 70′s.

       Marc tells that he delved into the genre when music label Buda Musique began releasing the ‘Ethiopiques‘ series  curated by Francis Falceto in the late 90′s.  A fan of Pharaoh Sanders in his student days, he mentions that "listening to Ethiopian music was like discovering where Pharoah Sanders found some of his inspiration from. Ethiopia was the heartbeat of the American free jazz scene of the late 60′s, Coltrane, Pharoah!  A bit the same way seeing Fela Kuti live in Lagos gave James Brown enough guts to move from soul to funk music.”