Abyssinia Infinite "Zion Roots" (Network, 2003) 
What with the album title and all, you'd be forgiven for thinking this was a reggae album, but back in Ethiopia, they actually take that whole Land of Zion thing pretty literally. But no, this isn't another rasta lovefest -- rather, it's a quite lovely, subtly textured and dreamalicious Bill Laswell-produced project which picks up where Ethiopian pop pioneers such as Mahmoud Ahmed left off. Singer Ejigayehu "Gigi" Shibabaw has a lovely voice, and her smooth style stands in welcome contrast to the normal shrillness of much of the older, classic Ethiopian pop and traditional recordings. The soundscape here is spacy, hypnotic and amorphous, akin to Sheila Chandra or Natacha Atlas in their mellower moments; although lushly produced, the album doesn't lapse into outright trip-hop -- unlike previous Gigi/Laswell collaborations, this disc is relatively circumspect and retains a distinctively local sound. Fans of the fabled ETHIOPIQUES series will definitely want to check this disc out to get a sense of where that style has gone, and anyone looking for some relaxing yet substantive world music will like this as well.