180g Heavy double vinyl LP with liner notes by Tyran Grillo. Limited Japanese Obi for the first pressing. Original artwork by Russell Mills and photography by Jean-Baptiste Mondino.
The third Time Capsule is a body of dub reinterpretations by celebrated producer Bill Laswell of Ethiopian singer Gigi. Curated by Tokyo record collector, music researcher and seasoned reissue supervisor Ken Hidaka, it is the first time Illuminated Audio is pressed to vinyl after its CD release in 2003.
Ejigayehu Shibabaw was born in 1974 in Chagni, northwestern Ethiopia and by pursuing a career as a singer, went against her fatherâs strict, traditional gender roles. As Gigi, she embraced the same musical freedom she had strived for in her personal life, incorporating the Ethiopian church, funk, hip-hop, West and South African music into her work. She first settled in Nairobi, then Addis Ababa, where she quickly established herself as one of the cityâs leading singers. A move to San Francisco in 1998 led to a long and fruitful creative partnership with bassist and producer Bill Laswell.
Around the same time, Chris Blackwell had stepped away from Island Records to start the art house film company and label Palm Pictures. He took an interest in Gigi and together with Laswell, pulled together an all-star cast of musicians for her self-titled US debut album, including Herbie Hancock, Pharoah Sanders and Wayne Shorter. It won international critical acclaim, not just for its musicianship but for making Gigi a âdefining voice for the Ethiopian expatriate communityâ, as journalist Tyran Grillo praises in his Time Capsule liner notes. From the nation-defining 1896 victory over Italian invaders to the quiet revolutionaries who wear simple shemma garments, Grillo believes the themes in Gigi make it âa shower of sunlight on her homeland for those ignorant of its struggles.â
After its success, Blackwell encouraged them to go back into the studio to rethink the album and Illuminated Audio was born. âAnyone can make a voice sound worldlyâ, Grillo remarks, âbut rare are those who can make one sound inner-worldly.â Gigi was clear with Laswell to give her vocals a minor role âbecause itâs already been done.â Instead her Amharic verse is fleeting, exhaling through the textures like ghostly fragments; soaring yet muted. Yet the album is still titled under her name, an assertion by Laswell of her central role in the albumâs creation. Not only was it a fully endorsed project by Gigi, but she would be present throughout its development, giving feedback on half-finished ideas as Laswell played them back in the studio. âIt works perfectlyâ, she reflected after the albumâs release. âWe wanted to capture the whole spirit of each track, and Billâs remixes create a different music language that really puts you in a pleasant placeâ.
This new vocabulary takes its lead from a technical approach that Laswell had been perfecting during a furtive creative period at the turn of the millennium. Much like his ambient interpretations of Miles Davis (Panthalassa, 1998), Bob Marley (Dreams of Freedom, 1997), and Carlos Santana (Divine Light, 2001), Laswell approached Illuminated Audio by returning to the original multitrack masters. Gigi wasnât just reworked, but recomposed into an expansive lattice of instruments, submerged in a watery ambience of dub and trance undercurrents.
Sonically, this new language that Gigi refers to, is manifested by the original albumâs more understated parts being pushed to the fore. Explaining his contrasting methods, Laswell saw Gigi as being âput together in a way that fitsâ. Contrastingly, in Illuminated Audio, âa lot of things that I featured in the remix werenât as audible in the original.â Instrumentation laying near-dormant, deep in the mix, are brought to the fore: the acid rock guitar and Wayne Shorterâs saxophone on âTew Ante Sewâ, Graham Haynesâ flugelhorn on âNafekeñâ, Laswellâs bass on âKahnâ, the melodica in Mengedegna or the floating synths and talking drums in âGud Fellaâ.
Brought to his attention by mentor DJ Nori, Hidaka describes Illuminated Audio as a âmasterful sonic exploration into ethereal ambience and dubâ and made sure this reissue also contained a full remaster to give its âdeep musicalityâ much better dynamics and density in the overall sound. Hidaka admits that Laswell's music âis sometimes so out-there, it is often misunderstoodâ and, indeed, to dub album non-believers this might seem like a prolific producer imposing himself on another artistâs work; eternally developing rearrangements that never quite get to its destination. But thatâs missing its true power and triumph. This is more than the reissue of a remix, but âa wholly unique musical entityâ, as Hidaka describes. Illuminated Audio refers to the illuminated manuscripts that comprise the major part of Ethiopian art and its new compositions stand in proud solitude as a rare body of reworks that both informs and enhances their originals.