Mulatu's title is no hollow hype. More than any artist he embodied the ‘Ethiopiques’ phenomenon, the ‘golden age’ of ‘swinging’ Addis, where jazz, soul, rock and psychedelic funk collided with local folk music to gloriously hypnotic effect during the mid-1960s and mid-1970s. The marks of distinction of the work of the musician who is largely credited with introducing the aforementioned western forms to his native land sound as contemporary as ever on this masterpiece, actually cut in New York. A major part of the appeal of this music is precisely how seamlessly it blurs both conceptual and cultural boundaries, grooving wickedly yet unfurling improvisations with expert economy, so that the underlying current of dance has concise flourishes that do not overpower the arrangements. As for the modes and scales on which the arrangements are built, they sound as much Arabic as they do African or Afro-Cuban, but Mulatu's carefully woven patterns of growling wah-wah keys, staccato reeds, hazy flute and whirring vibraphone imbue the music with a deeply intoxicating, opiate ambience. This is really essential music, as much for its beauty as the mockery it makes of the questionable concept of category or genre. Interestingly, there is a stereo and a mono mix of the material. Acquire and be carried away.