NOT FROM THESE PARTS

Hailu Mergia is not a name I knew before today. I was looking for something else altogether, and saw a link to Awesome Tapes From Africa, a site that lives up to it's name, on someone's blog roll. Hadn't been there for a while, so what the hell. Scrolling stopped on a Hailu Mergia post, because it looked like something that might be interesting. It was interesting. Fu-huck was it. The song that's posted (alas, streaming only) is one of those songs that you can't really fit into a genre. There's just too much going on. Mergia was Ethiopian, the album is from 1977, that much I know. As far as what he sounds like, you can hear jazz, Ethio-jazz, funk, afro-funk, reggae and just about everything in between. If the song is any indication of what the whole LP is like, my shopping list just got longer. I have no idea what planet it was recorded on.

After further digging, I ran into another song of his, "Musicawi Silt", that the Daktaris covered a few years back, Totally figures (mumble mumble, those Daptone affiliated eggheads). It's a great song, so we're two for two, but that's when it's the Pyramids on Bandstand all over again. In other words, deflating. A later Mergia cut revealed a sound steeped in low budget synth. Still confounding, but yikes!

~ NOTE: ALL MEDIA IS HOSTED BY THE BLOGS & SITES NAMED BELOW ~

Listen:
Hailu Mergia and the Walias - Tche Belew (streaming) at Awesome Tapes From Africa
Hailu Mergia and the Walias - Musicawi Silt mp3 at Mixtape Riot Go there to get it.
Hailu Megia - Shillela mp3 at Ethiopian Review
The Daktaris - Musicawa Silt (streaming) at YouTube
The Daktaris - Super Afro Beat mp3 at ATumblr (?)