Wede Harer Guzo - Hailu Mergia & Dahlak Band

In Amharic, Wede Harer Guzo means ‘Journey to Harer’ (a town in Eastern Ethiopia).

I would describe Wede Harer Guzo as a soulful psychedelic jazz album. Put together at the Ghion Hotel in Ethiopia’s capital city Addis Ababa, the album is full of smoky atmospheric instrumentals and hushed delicacies that swerve popular tropes of funk, RnB, and jazz that makes me feel like I'm in a heist movie and putting on a suit to go rob a bank.

A highly regarded musician in Addis during the 1970s, Mergia played in two of the most popular, high-end hotels in town: the Hilton and the Ghion. People would often stay in these hotels’ nightclubs throughout the entire night, dancing to the music. His band at the Hilton, the Walias, catered to an older, wealthier clientele, who were often foreign diplomats and tourists, providing them with instrumental music that leaned more towards traditional jazz and R&B. However, over at the Ghion, Mergia and the Dahlak Band performed for a younger, local crowd, where they played soulful takes on Amharic songs. To put it simply, the combination of Dahlak Band led by the keyboard champion Hailu Mergia is one of a kind.

While Hailu Mergia recorded Wede Harer Guzo with the Dahlak Band in 1978, the album was only made commercially available outside of Ethiopia in 2016. It was recorded during a period of military-imposed curfews by the dictatorship of the Derg, when people weren't allowed to be on the streets at night. Instead of the nightclubs shutting down, they decided they just had to stay jamming until sunrise when people were allowed to leave.

I will never stop loving this album with my whole heart. If you’re looking for a chill, unique album to put on at dinner to impress anyone, this is the one.

While much of Wede Harer Guzo is very accessible and easy to listen to and I obviously recommend listening to the whole album, the songs I think the most people would enjoy are:

Sintayehu

The title track, Wede Harer Guzo

Anchin Kfu Ayinkash

Mingibima Moltual