The title of the album’s opening track, ‘Kemd’layey’ translates to “harmony, agreement, and coming together.” That’s what this album does. It doesn’t shout – it gathers. Like breath returning to the body. Like dust settling. You don’t need to know the names of the instruments or even the country. You just feel it: the quiet agreement between soul and sound.
‘Yezemed Yebada’ (“Of Time, Of Struggle”) carries faint Latin swaying horns, warming a quiet room at dawn. While ‘Yene F’qr’ (“My Love”) moves like a gentle breeze beneath the African sun: soft, tender, and comforting. It doesn’t call attention to itself. It simply arrives. And it lingers close, steady, full of feeling. On ‘Skaysi Y’ke’al’yu’, which loosely evokes the idea of release from suffering, saxophonists Tedros Mitiku and Fekadu Amdemeskel lift the track into something like levitation. This isn’t mourning; it’s transcendence. And then there’s ‘Asa’belashalehu’, a lullaby of sorts. Not one whose intent is to put you to sleep, but one that stirs something deeper. The phrase translates as “I offered you the gift of the sea.” It’s calm, nourishing, elemental. Like being held. Like being remembered.
Throughout the album, the chemistry between the musicians is palpable. Whether it’s Tesfaye Mekonen on drums, Girma Chipsa on conga, or Dereje Mekonen on keys, the band moves with instinctive synchronicity. They only had about fifteen minutes to set up the microphones stealthily, without alerting the Ras Hotel management or the authorities and had to finish the recording before curfew hit at midnight. A kind of sonic Cinderella moment.
