Desdes

The thing about Eritrean music is that it is ridiculously trancey. Ten hours will pass in a blink of an eye as you shuffle  in a circle, moving to the distinctive, constant, beat of the kebero drum.  Awalom Gebremariam’s music is based on these unique, lolloping rhythms, and each track is set apart by flourishes of the wata and the krar, and by the nostalgic,  yearning male and female vocals. As an Eritrean exile, who fled first to Ethiopia and later to the United States, Gebremariam is not pining for a lost lover, though most of his songs are about love, but longing for the day that his country will be free, and he’ll be able to return.