Moa Anbessa is an album by Ethiopia

Ethiopia

Ethiopia , officially known as the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a country located in the Horn of Africa. It is the second-most populous nation in Africa, with over 82 million inhabitants, and the tenth-largest by area, occupying 1,100,000 km2...

n saxophonist

Saxophone

The saxophone is a conical-bore transposing musical instrument that is a member of the woodwind family. Saxophones are usually made of brass and played with a single-reed mouthpiece similar to that of the clarinet. The saxophone was invented by the Belgian instrument maker Adolphe Sax in 1846...

 Getatchew Mekuria with Dutch

Netherlands

The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...

 post-punk

Post-punk

Post-punk is a rock music movement with its roots in the late 1970s, following on the heels of the initial punk rock explosion of the mid-1970s. The genre retains its roots in the punk movement but is more introverted, complex and experimental...

 band The Ex and guests, released in 2006 on The Ex's subsidiary label Terp. The project came together on the heels of The Ex's previous studio album Turn

Turn (The Ex album)

Turn is a double album by Dutch anarchist post-punk band The Ex. After 20 years of working with Luc, their former bass guitarist, Turn is the only Ex album to feature double bass player Rosemarie giving the band a sound akin their prior work with cellist Tom Cora...

, which incorporated elements of Eritrea

Eritrea

Eritrea , officially the State of Eritrea, is a country in the Horn of Africa. Eritrea derives it's name from the Greek word Erethria, meaning 'red land'. The capital is Asmara. It is bordered by Sudan in the west, Ethiopia in the south, and Djibouti in the southeast...

n and Congo

Democratic Republic of the Congo

The Democratic Republic of the Congo is a state located in Central Africa. It is the second largest country in Africa by area and the eleventh largest in the world...

lese music alongside a tribute to the Ethiojazz anthems of Getatchew Mekuria. The Ex had toured Ethiopia twice and then invited Mekuria to perform at their 25th anniversary show in Amsterdam where he proposed that The Ex be the backup band

Backup band

A backing band or backup band is a musical ensemble that accompanies an artist at a live performance or on a recording. This can either be an established, long-standing group that has little or no change in membership, or it may be an ad hoc group assembled for a single show or a single recording...

 for his next album. In addition to Moa Anbessa, the collaboration yielded tours of Europe

Europe

Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

 and North America

North America

North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...

 as well as an official live DVD

DVD

A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....

 released by Buda Music, producers of the influential Ethiopiques

Ethiopiques

Ethiopiques is a series of compact discs featuring Ethiopian and Eritrean singers and musicians. Many of the Ethiopiques CDs compile various singles and albums that Amha Records, Kaifa Records, and Philips-Ethiopia released during the 1960s and 1970s in Ethiopia...

series of ethiojazz compilations.

In addition to Mekuria and The Ex's core two-guitar/drums/vocals line up, Moa Anbessa and the tours surrounding it featured additional brass and reed work from Canadian alto sax player Brodie West, French

French people

The French are a nation that share a common French culture and speak the French language as a mother tongue. Historically, the French population are descended from peoples of Celtic, Latin and Germanic origin, and are today a mixture of several ethnic groups...

 clarinetist Xavier Charles, and Dutch trombonist Joost Buis who had previously played with the band in their Ex Orkest

Een Rondje Holland

Een Rondje Holland is a live album by Ex Orkest, an orchestra made up of the Dutch post-punk band The Ex accompanied by 15 other musicians. The album features orchestral arrangements of previously released Ex songs mixed with pieces of improvised music...

 project. The Ex also reunited with Scottish

Scottish people

The Scottish people , or Scots, are a nation and ethnic group native to Scotland. Historically they emerged from an amalgamation of the Picts and Gaels, incorporating neighbouring Britons to the south as well as invading Germanic peoples such as the Anglo-Saxons and the Norse.In modern use,...

 bass player Colin McLean with whom they had toured and co-released records in the late 1980s when both McLean and Andy Moor were members of the Dog Faced Hermans

Dog Faced Hermans

The Dog Faced Hermans were a four-piece band whose style could be described as anarcho-punk incorporating folk and noise influences as well as unorthodox instrumentation.-History:...

.

Album title

The name "Moa Anbessa", Amharic for "The Conquering Lion", refers to a political party

Moa Anbessa (party)

Moa Anbessa , is a political party made up of Ethiopians for a Constitutional Monarchy. It was created by the exiled titular Emperor Amha Selassie I to operate as the political wing of the Crown. Later, disputes among the membership and questions about its accounting practices caused the Imperial...

 made up of Ethiopians who support a constitutional monarchy

Constitutional monarchy

Constitutional monarchy is a form of government in which a monarch acts as head of state within the parameters of a constitution, whether it be a written, uncodified or blended constitution...

. The party was created by exiled titular emperor Amha Selassie I to operate as the political wing of the crown. As an album title, it makes note both of Mekuria's support of the royal family, as well as his own "return to the throne" of Ethiopian jazz.

Track listing

1. "Ethiopia Hagere" - 6:31
2. "Sethed Seketelat" - 4:31
3. "Eywat Setenafegagn" - 5:05
4. "Che Belew Shellela" - 4:50
5. "Aynamaye Nesh" - 5:55
6. "Aynotche Terabu/Shemonmwanaye" - 8:15
7. "Musicawi Silt" - 4:23
8. "Tezeta" - 4:17
9. "Almaz Yeharerwa" - 5:35
10. "Tezalegn Yetentu" - 6:03
11. "Aha Begena" - 6:30

Personnel

• Getatchew Mekuria (tenor saxophone)
• G.W. Sok (vocals)
• Katherina Bornefeld (drums)
• Terrie Hessels (guitar)
• Andy Moor
  Andy Moor (The Ex)
  Andy Moor is an experimental musician, best known as the guitarist of the UK band Dog Faced Hermans and the Dutch punk collective The Ex. He was also a founding member of Kletka Red and along with Isabelle Vigier and Yannis Kyriakides created the experimental music label Unsounds.Moor was born in...
  
  (guitar)
• Colin McLean (bass)
• Xavier Charles (clarinet)
• Joost Buis (trombone)
• Brodie West (alto saxophone)
• Cor Fuhler (organ on tracks 6, 9 and 10)