Moa Anbessa

See this is the kinda stuff that should be on the OG list. I don't think I'd seek out Ethiopian jazz otherwise. This album goes hard but the only downside is the mediocre vocals. My personal rating: 4/5 My rating relative to the list: 4.5/5 Should this have been included on the original list? Yes.

Ethiopian Sax meets Dutch Post Punk?! Sign me up for interesting musical collaborations! Crazy sax playing, strangely exotic and jazzy.

This is an album full of steamy urgent jazz-punk-afro-funk and an absolute delight in every way. The Ex is the Dutch punkrock band that from early eighties has evolved from punk to postpunk to noise & avantgarde to all sorts of world music. First European folk and later African music. Getatchew Mekuria was an Ethiopian jazz sax player full of Jazz and African Funk and open to a new perspective on his musical views. This collaboration resulted in a combination of distorted postpunk guitars and punky aggressive vocals combined with seventies sounding African brass funk. A combination that works in every way. It sounds strange, but the rhythms and sheer pleasure fit like a glove and produce something that is more than the individual parts.

An explosive combination of genres makes this LP feel wholly unique compared to the ~1500 before it on the 1001. Loved how the combo of jazz and punk kept morphing across each track, making it feel like the album was twisting and turning through different genres while maintaining a strong sense of identity. Add in the prominent sax and this LP just seized my attention and wouldn’t let go. Awesome add and exactly what the user list is for.

Oh wow, The Ex! Looks like they removed their catalogue, including all the collab albums like this one, off of Spotify very recently because I was just listening to "Scrabbling at the Lock" like a week ago. Hopefully that doesn't scare off some people from listening to this, because it's really good. Ethiopian Jazz x Dutch Post-Punk. An absolutely fuckular combination that ends up working wonderfully. Really nothing else like this. Definitely a must listen and a worthy addition. Just when I was getting unfathomably bored of the user album list and thinking about quitting, an album like this just breathed like 2 more weeks into me.

What an amazing blend of genres.

Holy shit this album slaps so hard.

Can I get a HELL YEAH?

Ethiopian jazz meets Dutch punk, makes an album the sounds like neither (and somehow both). An absolute blast, and one I would definitely never have heard otherwise! Thanks for the pointer!

The Ex's extensive discography is a continent I know I need to explore one day. Unfortunately, I have only approached its shore through a very nice concert of theirs in my hometown long ago. So long ago, actually, that it was years before streaming services -- now set aside by The Ex anyway -- existed, and also long before you could find the Dutch band's full albums on You Tube. The thing is, I really don't know where to start now to delve into that band's decade of genre-allergic artistry. I can't navigate You Tube as easily as I do streaming services. Damn, it's annoying that my listening habits are now so formatted by those streaming websites not even paying artists their fair due. As a result, it seems that The Ex's discography is once again put on the backburner. So can I really "start" with *Moa Anbessa*? I'm not so sure. The nature of this album makes it an arguable entry point -- because the real star here is the clearly versatile and talented Ethiopian saxophonist Getatchew Mekuria. Yet I know that the record also serves as a tribute to the obvious adventurous spirit of The Ex (apart from them, how many art-punk / post-punk bands have toured Ethiopia and Eritrea, and made contact with musicians there to play with them, whether in the studio and in live settings?). Maybe I shouldn't bother about that and just let the moody, hypnotic punk-jazz tones found in this record win me over as they should. This thing sounds close to cinematic for me. You feel as if this could play out in the soundtrack of an off-kilter Jim Jarmusch flick, or in any independent movie involving a very diverse cast challenging the concept of cultural borders. The sound is rich, deep, sometimes complex even. But it's also "feel-good" music at its core. The best of several worlds encapsulated in sixty boundless minutes. Yet, can I be one to really give a fair grade to this album? Not that I want to repeat myself, but as nice as *Moa Anbessa* sounds overall, the experience is still a little bit frustrating for me for contextual reasons. Indeed, I don't have a lot of time on my hand these days, which is a shame, because if I had had some time, I would already be diving headfirst into the discographies of all the talents gathered for this record (Getatchew Mekuria, The Ex, and also the other guests). Then, maybe, I could assess if this LP is "important" or not. Eh, let those podiums and rankings shenanigans be damned for once. Leaving a very good mark to this LP anyway. After all, if this album shows one single thing to me, it's that the world is a very large place, and that if all sorts of unpredictable encounters can happen in it, you can't be everywhere at once either. 3.5/5 for the purposes of this list of essential albums, rounded up to 4. 8.5/10 for more general purposes (5 + 3.5) ---- Number of albums from the original list I find relevant enough to be mandatory listens: 465 Albums from the original list I *might* include in mine later on: 288 Albums from the original list I won't include in mine: 336 ---- Number of albums from the users list I find relevant enough to be mandatory listens: 75 Albums from the users list I *might* select for mine later on: 91 (including this one) Albums from the users list I won't select for mine: 177 ---- Émile, tu trouveras ma dernière réponse sous le *Inside* de Bo Burnham

Let this be a lesson for everyone who drops the absolute latest Sabrina Carpenter album or the people insisting every Bon Iver album ends up on here. Ethiopian Saxophonist backed by a Dutch Post-Punk band. This is the shit we’re here for

I enjoyed this one

Remarkably good

This was pretty fire, though occasionally getting into that free form jazz territory I'm not sophisticated enough to appreciate. Interesting to experience on headphones while walking in the dark through a moderate Minnesota snowstorm.

This is awesome. Wish it was on Spotify. 4 stars.

this was super cool! definitely something i’d never heard and never would have heard. shined brightest when there were no vocals but it shined pretty damn bright in those moments. unfortunately the vocals seemed to always be around the corner which makes it so that i can’t give this anything higher than a 3. but this album instrumentally is an easy 4

Fascinating Ethiopian melding of Jazz and Punk. While Ska adjacent, it's not Ska, two-tone, or dubstep - it's something more, and I don't know that there is the proper lexicon to describe it.

Rating: 8/10 Best songs: Ethiopia hagere, Aynamaye nesh, Tezalegn yetentu, Aha begena

Great album just a shame I had to listen through youtube

This was a cool collabs of worlds

Ethio-Jazz, art punk. Curiosos popurrí. Ni fu ni fa.

it's got swag. kinda punk meets blues sax? pretty wild, im not sure I like it? But I respect it. fun and sassy. 3?

Ethio-Jazz, art punk. Curiosos popurrí. Ni fu ni fa.

A few songs sounded like the theme tune to a cheesy cop show starrimg our hero Nigel Spackman cleaning up the streets of Dresden

Nice

Not on Spotify for me. Found something on YTM. Interesting music. I like it.

Occasionally interesting, too often live. I preferred the jazzy instrumentation to the vocal.

Ethio-Jazzart, punk. Todo el rato igual igual igual.

Unable to listen to

Who on earth can give 5 stars for this nonsense?

Not available on Apple or Spotify. Found it on YouTube that just made me cross. I don’t have the time to sit with my phone open listening to an album. I did this project because I needed to listen to music while working and was getting tired of having to choose all the time. Also, Jazz. So no, I did not rate this album highly.