Souvenirs

Album review

Sparse and meditative yet wholly inventive and melodic, it's easy to see why so many folks became captivated with the solo piano home recordings of composer Emahoy Tsege Mariam Gebru, who died in March 2023 at the age of 99. There's a new element to this latest collection of the celebrated Ethiopian nun, who the Portland-based label Mississippi Records helped to rescue from obscurity in the last decade: her delightful voice! So how is Emahoy's voice? It's not quite at the "real people" level or as idiosyncratic as when Glenn Gould sings along to the Bach compositions he plays. But she also isn't a trained opera singer or Joni Mitchell, so a few listens may be needed before its full charms are revealed. If you already love the plaintive vocals of Connie Converse and Molly Drake, or those bits where Monk sings along to his own playing, then you're good to go. The loping, harmonious music is actually quite complex and informed by Coptic, Western classical, and age-old Ethiopian traditional sounds. These low fidelity recordings from 1977-1985 were expertly cleaned up by Timothy Stollenwerk, but originally made on her own boombox. If you listen closely, you can hear birds singing outside the window, or her seat shift and creak a bit. From the first tune, the light and airy "Clouds Moving on the Sky," it's hard to not be transported to a flotational state; fittingly, cloud imagery suffuses the album. On "Clouds Moving on the Sky," she sings (in Amharic) "Crows of the sky, please tell me/ What is found above the clouds?" The delightfully-titled "Is it Sunny or Cloudy in the Land You Live" is a slow and assured waltz. It's remarkable, then, to discover that these beautiful works were created amidst political upheaval and turmoil. Though written and recorded while still living at her family's home in Addis Ababa, Emahoy sings of the heartache of leaving her beloved Ethiopia, a reflection on the 1974 revolution and ensuing terror, a presentiment of her later exile in Jerusalem. While Emahoy died before this material could be released, she loved the idea of it finally being heard, and it finally is, here in her centenary. © Mike McGonigal/Qobuz