Bleep

Hailu Mergia’s recent spike in popularity bears fruit with the Ethio-Jazz artist’s first new LP in fifteen years. Backed for this release by drummer Tony Buck and bassist Mike Majkowski, Mergia offers up some of the richest and most limber music of his career. Moving between accordion, organ and keys with ease, the likes of ‘Gum Gum’ and ‘Lala Belu’ pop with great grooves that are as much indebted to the funk of his adoptive home of America as they are to his native Ethiopia. It’s fitting that Lala Belu should surface on Awesome Tapes From Africa - Brian Shimkovitz’s reissues of Mergia’s early albums have been crucial releases not just in Mergia’s career but also the recent boom in interest in 1970s/80s Ethio-Jazz.