8. Various ArtistsÉthiopiques Volume 4: Ethio Jazz & Musique Instrumentale, 1969–1974
The first song on that record by Mulatu, ‘Yèkèrmo Sèw’, is also from 1969. I heard that on another cool radio station in Paris, and it’s another example of a song where I can picture myself in a specific place at a specific time just stopping whatever I was doing, rushing to the tape recorder and taping it, thinking, ‘My God, what is that? This is so beautiful’.
I was lucky, because I was able to borrow the compilation straight away from the music library, and then little-by-little, I started to borrow the entire series as it was being released. From there on, I branched out into other African musics, including much more traditional music from field recordings. I also got into all sorts of non-Western types of music, and I was obsessed with the gamelan for a long time. The odd thing, also being in Paris, was that I was able to go to Indian music concerts at an incredible Asian arts museum called Musée Guimet. But I’ve chosen this as an example of how mind-blowing and mind-opening it was to listen to non-Western musics in terms of my own approach to composing.
