Gold and Wax

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Binding: Audio CD
EAN: 0660200212827
Label: Palm Pictures (Audio
Manufacturer: Palm Pictures (Audio
Number Of Discs: 1
Publisher: Palm Pictures (Audio
Release Date: 2006-05-16
Studio: Palm Pictures (Audio

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Customer reviews of Gold and Wax

Customer Rating:

Summary: great album
Comment: bill laswell's wife is awesome on this!i'd get it if it just had her voice,but with the extra musicians adding to it the album is a monster of artistry!anyone into world music,dub,or just a good lounge cd--get this!!!

Customer Rating:

Summary: Poetic Perfection
Comment: Gigi's music is an authentic experience where the ancient and modern mingle in an intriguing soul infusion of rich rhythms and alluring and at times ethereal vocals. Gold and Wax is at times hypnotic, at times deeply sensuous and always captivating in its sophistication.

Gigi's voice melts into "Gomelaleye" as it merges with an electronic world. By the end of the song, you are heady from the sweet perfection of the warm soothing textures and Gigi's ecstatic vocals. In "Ambasale" she sings with such a clarity of vision that seems to float above the surging depths of an ever changing complexity. You can hear a world of cultural influences in her music, all while her voice remains firmly rooted in her heritage.

You honestly don't need to understand one word of Amharic to be completely entranced by each melodic rendition, although the layers of meaning may be hidden within the beauty. I love "Salam" and the images my mind forms as I imagine her singing this song out in an African night blissfully lost in her own ecstatic wild and sweet ziraleet.

Gold and Wax is an intriguing title because it takes much more heat to melt gold to purity than to melt pure wax. Gigi knows when to use her vocal strengths and when to soften the heat. She can whisper over a candle without melting the wax or take an ancient idea into her heart and melt it like gold to form contemporary beauty in "Utopia." This comforting song is filled with hope and draws on the idea of unity.

What comes across is a purity of sound that is exquisite especially when Ustad Sultan Khan plays the sarangi in "Hulu-Dane" where you have to take a deep breath, it is that beautiful.

After listening to this album for seven or eight times, new sounds emerge as if from an everchanging African sunset and merge with your mind and soul in the most intriguing of ways. At first the obvious appears and then the mysterious hidden element evolves and awakens and you are left with a sense of wonder.

As the wax melts away with the heat of the gold, Gigi's voice becomes the goldsmith creating precious treasures. She reveals the poetry of the Ethiopian heart and effortlessly mingles her voice with the musical artistry of Abegasu Shiota, Bernie Worrell, Nils Petter Molvaer, Moges Habte, Assaye Zegeye, Bill Laswell (electronic percussion), Robert Musso (acoustic guitar), Karsh Kale (drums), Aiyb Dieng, MIDIval Punditz and Lili Haydn (violin). Gigi's Gold and Wax is rare in beauty and an album you will want in your collection if you love world music.

~The Rebecca Review
lived in Africa for 12 years

Customer Rating:

Summary: Gigi
Comment: Having not heard any other Gigi albums I can't compare to previous efforts but I can certainly say that this one is good.

I have no idea what she is singing but she has a good voice and the songs have nice beats behind them and are very catchy however hard to sing along with for obvious reasons

Customer Rating:

Summary: Reality Check
Comment: Many reviewers having only a superficial acquaintance with Gigi's work think that the previous Palm Pictures release "Gigi" was the singer's debut record, or that "Gold and Wax" is the only record since. Both these assumptions are entirely incorrect. It would be better for this CD if that WERE true, because it compares poorly not only to "Gigi" but to the rest of her body of work.

The Amazon "official reviewer" and assorted "editorial reviewers" are laughably off-base and should literally be ashamed of themselves. This CD sounds like it was rushed shoddily to market to capitalize on the currently raised profile of producer Bill Laswell, and just get "new Gigi product" on the market.

The quality of compositions, arrangements, performances, editing, mixing - and yes, Gigi's singing - are all significantly below par here compared to "Zion Roots," "Gigi," and "Radioaxiom," the Jah Wobble/Bill Laswell opus on which Gigi is heavily featured. Sadly, this is becoming a pattern in recent Laswell follow-up efforts: a brilliant opener succeeded by a lame pretender. His "Version2Version" follow-up to the absolutely first class "Radioaxiom" is previous case-in-point. The listener is further insulted by the inclusion yet again of the limp song "Jerusalem," showing up in a Laswell/Gigi record for the third or fourth time, in certainly the worst version yet.

Want to hear Gigi at her acoustic best? Go for "Zion Roots." Want an electro-acoustic sound-painting tour-de-force in which her voice is treated like an instrumental sound source? Go for "Radioaxiom." Want to hear a masterfully-realized modern planetary pop record? Go for "Gigi." If you can't hear how Gold and Wax is dramatically inferior to all her other work, then you are neither an active nor a discriminating listener, and are a prisoner of your own ignorance.

2.5 Stars, generously rounded up to 3, since these are, after all, great musicians who deserve our support, but not blind adulation.

Customer Rating:

Summary: the long-awaited followup to "Illuminated Audio"
Comment: If you an electronic-music enthusiast, beware. If you are hoping for music in the same vein and style as "Illuminated Audio"
you are in for a big letdown. The best song on the cd is the first track- Semena-Wrock. Almost all the songs sound the same, but that is typical of many popular artists. Gold and Wax basically sounds like african lyrics to a rock-and-roll type
back ground with no solo riffs.

Editorial Reviews:

Product Description The long-awaited follow-up to Gigi’s stellar debut has finally landed. On her second effort, Gold & Wax, Ejigayehu "Gigi" Shibabaw has again proven her ability to seamlessly work the songs of her Ethiopian ancestry into a contemporary vocal sound befitting the worlds of jazz, electronica and even dub-inspired African rhythms. Produced by Bill Laswell, Gold & Wax maintains an illustrious gleam; every instrument falls perfectly into place, centered on the singer’s near-angelic range.

The praise for Gigi was universal and unabashed. The Miami Herald rightfully called Gigi "Ethiopia’s gift to the world," while The NY Times described her sound as "full of unexpected angles and modal curves." Her vocals, according to XLR8R, "sounds sweeter than a cup of Ethiopian honey wine"; while the Village Voice agreed saying she has "not just a luxuriously rich voice but an unassumingly cosmopolitan presence." Gigi is an ambassador of ancient sound with modern sensibilities.

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