{"id":369,"date":"2020-03-03T00:45:04","date_gmt":"2020-03-03T06:45:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/postgenre.org\/staging\/4567\/?p=369"},"modified":"2020-12-14T12:08:15","modified_gmt":"2020-12-14T18:08:15","slug":"review-hailu-mergias-yene-mircha-%e1%8b%a8%e1%8a%94-%e1%88%9d%e1%88%ad%e1%8c%ab","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/postgenre.org\/staging\/4567\/review-hailu-mergias-yene-mircha-%e1%8b%a8%e1%8a%94-%e1%88%9d%e1%88%ad%e1%8c%ab\/","title":{"rendered":"Review: Hailu Mergia’s ‘Yene Mircha (\u12e8\u1294 \u121d\u122d\u132b)’"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In January 2013, Brian Shimkovitz, the head of Awesome Tapes From Africa, found a cassette tape in a shop in Bahir Dar, Ethiopia titled Hailu Mergia & His Classical Instrument. <\/em>Its combination of the nation’s traditional music with funk and jazz completely blew him away and he undertook a quest to share it with the rest of the world. Subsequent discussions with the then cab driver bandleader in Washington D.C., led to the re-issuance of three albums and the creation of a new recording,  Lala Belu (\u120b\u120b \u1260\u1209)<\/em>. The latter was arguably among the best releases of the past decade. <\/a>But in some ways, it served for the keyboardist\/accordionist\/pianist to prove that the brilliance of the past recordings was not a fluke nor that his talent lost its luster in the ensuing years. With the follow-up, Yene Mircha<\/em> ( \u12e8\u1294 \u121d\u122d\u132b)<\/em>, he produces yet another fine work, one that arguably moves beyond American and Ethiopian styles to transcend multiple cultural lines while still being more personal to the artist. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Upon first encounter, there is seemingly no unifying concept on Yene Mircha<\/em> ( \u12e8\u1294 \u121d\u122d\u132b)<\/em>. As suggested by the album’s title – Amharic for “my choice” – it centers around Mergia’s thoughts on music at this time. With such a personal impetus, it should be unsurprising that most of the compositions are originals. For someone who has spent his life divided between the United States and Ethiopia, one would anticipate that these pieces significantly pick up on cues from the cultures of both countries and it does effortlessly meld these influences. Unexpected, however, is his ability to incorporate other cultural forms. Thus, to say there is no preset idea unifying the work is a bit of a misconception. Instead, it largely reflects the different influences on the bandleader’s craft. As Mergia himself notes, \u201cYou can do anything with Ethiopian music, it shouldn\u2019t be only this sound or that sound. That\u2019s why I called the album My Choice. This is the sound I choose.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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