New releases last eight weeks: Jazz

Review: The first vocal album by beloved Ethiopian nun, composer, and pianist Emahoy Tsege Mariam Gebru, Souvenirs is a profound and deeply moving home collection of cassette recordings made amidst political upheaval and turmoil. These are songs of wisdom, loss, mourning, and exile, sung directly into a boombox and accompanied by Emahoy's unmistakable piano. Though written and recorded while still living at her family's home in Addis Ababa, Emahoy sings of the heartache of leaving her beloved Ethiopia, a reflection on the 1974 revolution and ensuing Red Terror in her homeland, and a presentiment of her future exile in Jerusalem. Rich with the sound of birds outside the window, the creak of the piano bench, the thump of Emahoy's finger on the record button, they create a sense of place, of being near the artist while she records. Emahoy's lyrics, sung in Amharic, are poetic and heavy with the weight of exile; she dreamt of releasing this music to a larger audience before her passing in March of 2023, so in her honour, Mississippi present this album in collaboration with her family now, in what would have been her 100th year.