Moa Anbessa

Possibly taking a leaf out of the book of his compatriot and contemporary Mulatu Astatke, the Ethiopian saxophonist – and one of the star's of the exemplary Éthiopiques reissue series – Getatchew Mekuria has picked a band of Europeans to be his latest musical foils. But where Astatke selected the largely sympathetic Heliocentrics to be his collaborators on last year's Inspiration Information record, Mekuria has plumped for Dutch punk-jazz veterans The Ex. It's a marriage that's not always a happy one.

When The Ex take hold of a tune, they tend to dominate. See the bracing opener, ‘Ethiopia Hagere’, on which horns and punky guitar violently duel with each other, before GW Sok's shouty vocals overwhelm. Things improve when the flying Dutchmen take a step back, allowing Mekuria's liquid sax to keep everything focused, its notes vibrating in the air. But this doesn't mean The Ex are remotely superfluous; their own horns provide a deeply effective bolster and ballast, while the guitar, often played in a style similar to that of Tom Waits’ old sidekick Marc Ribot, matches the main man's sax for noirish feel.

It's just that anyone expecting a nostalgic reheating of Ethiopian music's golden age might be a tad disappointed. While there are moments that will speak directly to Éthiopiques fans (most notably the hypnotic repetition on ‘Aynotche Terabu’/‘Shemonmwanaye’), this mostly live recording is a collaboration, a two-way street. And as such it's a footnote, rather than a new chapter, in the evolution of Ethiopian music.