The singular, spartan brilliance of late, great Ethiopian musical nun, and recent Songlines cover star, Emahoy Tsege Mariam Gebru, is being celebrated with the release of a new self-recorded vocal album, Souvenirs, to be issued via Mississippi Records on February 23, 2024.

Composed and recorded at her family home in Addis Ababa between 1977 and 1985, a bloody episode in Ethiopia’s history known as the ‘Red Terror’, during which a socialist military junta killed tens of thousands, including members of Emahoy’s own family, these vocal pieces are inescapably poignant, freighted with deep loss, pain and a homesickness for a country twisted beyond recognition.  

Speaking about the collection, Mississippi Records say: “These gorgeous songs feature unheard piano compositions and Emahoy’s hushed voice, recorded into a boombox that sat atop her instrument at her family’s home in Addis Ababa. Intimate and warm, yet recorded during a time of massive upheaval in her beloved Ethiopia, they reflect another side of the artist and her wide-ranging practice.”

Now Souvenirs, only ever previously available as an extremely-limited CD run sold by Emahoy from behind the counter of her monastery’s gift ship, is given a welcome wider release on what would have been her 100th year.

Souvenirs is scheduled for release on February 23, 2024 via Mississippi Records, while Andrew Adair’s lyric video for the album’s first single, ‘Clouds Moving on the Sky’, can be enjoyed below.