Friday, October 26, 2007

Lights out, light up.


Troll the MP3 blogs enough and you'll run into posts about Mulatu Astatke, often referred to as the father of Ethio-jazz (or Ethiopian jazz). Though the jazz tag is really a little misleading, his music is indefinably other-worldly. Without knowing anything about him, it would be hard to peg the orgin or era of the sounds that you're hearing.

Much like Quentin Tarintino's serendipitous inclusion of Dick Dale and other surf music in Pulp Fiction's soundtrack, Astatke's music has enjoyed a slew of new attention from the inclusion on the soundtrack to Jim Jarmusch's Broken Flowers. If you haven't seen the film, it is highly recommended that you listen first context-free.

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