Ibex Band, the group that played behind Mahmoud Ahmed and other Ethiopian stars in the 1970s, starts a tour of Europe on Tuesday. Guitarist Selam Seyoum Woldemariam, known as Selamino, and bass player Giovanni Rico will lead the band, the booking agency Planet Rock said.
The tour opens on Tuesday, November 3, at the AB Club of Ancienne Belgique, a concert hall in Brussels. The hall calls the night a 50th anniversary concert for Stereo Instrumental Music, an album the band recorded in Addis Ababa in 1976.
Six Cities in Six Nights
On Wednesday, the band plays the KIT Café in Düsseldorf, Germany, in a show billed as its first in the country. On Thursday, it plays on the opening night of Le Guess Who?, a music festival in Utrecht, the Netherlands. The festival is holding its 20th edition this year.
The last three nights are in Sweden. On Friday, the band plays at Kulturhuset Stadsteatern in Stockholm as part of the Selam Festival. The Stockholm event guide Nattljud says it will be the band’s first concert in Sweden. Shows follow in Gothenburg on Saturday and in Umeå on Sunday, November 8.
Planet Rock said Selamino and Rico will play with younger musicians from the United States, Sweden and Ethiopia.
A Lost Album Comes Back
The tour follows the return of Stereo Instrumental Music. Muzikawi, a label based in Stockholm and Addis Ababa, released it on April 11, 2025. The music came from a chrome cassette found in perfect condition, according to the album notes on the band’s Bandcamp page.
The notes say the band recorded the 12 instrumental songs in Addis Ababa in July 1976. Most of the work took place in two sessions in the ballroom of the Ras Hotel. Karl-Gustav Lundgren, a Swede who worked for the Radio Voice of the Gospel, lent the band a four track recorder. It was the first one available in the country, the notes say.
The music magazine Uncut gave the album a full page review and a score of 8 out of 10, Ancienne Belgique noted. The music website The Quietus called the album “a unique document of the vibrant Ethiopian music scene of the 1970s”.
The Sound Behind the Stars
Ibex Band later became the Roha Band. According to Muzikawi’s notes, the band backed singers such as Aster Aweke, Tilahun Gessesse and Girma Beyene, and it also worked with Mulatu Astatke. Selamino and Rico arranged and recorded Ere Mela Mela, the 1975 song and album that gave their bandmate Mahmoud his big break, according to Muzikawi’s notes.
The two men worked on about 200 albums and recorded an estimated 2,500 songs in the 1970s and 1980s, Ancienne Belgique said. Most of those recordings were lost over the years.
The notes say Selamino and Rico influenced many younger players, from the keyboard player Abegasu Shiota to the bass player Henock Temesgen. Both men are founders of the band Admas, which played a live session for the Addis Ababa music room Fabrica in October.
Ancienne Belgique describes Selamino as a guitarist often called the Ethiopian Jimi Hendrix. Väven, the culture house in Umeå, says he is one of the main role models of Mark Speer, the guitarist of the band Khruangbin.
Video: Kemd’layey, the first song on Ibex Band’s album Stereo Instrumental Music, recorded in Addis Ababa in 1976 and posted on Muzikawi’s YouTube channel on April 11, 2025.
