10 Various

Ethiopian Hit Parade

You say: “My first port of call when I crave a near perfect distillation of Ethiopia’s musical riches.” Jamie Renton, via Facebook The entry-level VFM choice could have been Union Square’s 2-CD The Very Best Of Éthiopiques (or Heavenly Sweetness’s Heavenly Éthiopiques for vinyl heads), but Amha Eshete’s groundbreaking indie label got there first and deserves the credit. The first of five volumes (though the only one to have been reissued), it collects a dozen singles from 1969-71, including Mulatu Astatké’s genre-defining Yekermo Saw and Seifu Yohannes’s Tezeta, a tune that almost every act out of Addis Ababa has had a crack at. Find a copy of the Mulatu In London EP on Amha going for pennies at a car-boot sale and you may be able to retire on the profit.