Either/Orchestra: Nalbandian The Ethiopian

After a decade and a half break, the always interesting Either/Orchestra is back with another compelling recording—albeit one recorded in 2011 and 2012, and only now, in 2026, seeing the light of day.

Russ Gershon remains at the helm of the Either/Orchestra, and not only is this recording finally being issued, but the group is also in the midst of 40th anniversary touring schedule with shows later this spring of 2026 scheduled for Knoxville and Cleveland.

For a band that has always had clever wordplay in its album titles—Half-Life of Desire (1990), Mood Music for Time Travellers (2011), The Calculus of Pleasure (1992), all on Accurate Records. The trend continues with Nalbandian the Ethiopian, 'Nalbandian' being an ethnically Armenian surname, yet clearly assigned to an Ethiopian.

As it turns out (in background notes on the album's Bandcamp page), much of post-World War II Ethiopian music was composed and performed by a community of Armenian ex-pats who had fled the ethnic cleansing being carried out by the Turks in their ancestral lands.

So this album is not only a new Either/Orchestra release, but it is also part of the ongoing Ethiopiques series—Vol 32 to be precise. While most of that series focuses on recordings by Ethiopian musicians, this is actually the second entry featuring the Either/Orchestra performing Ethiopian music—following Vol. 20, Live in Addis (Buda Musique) from 2005.

And the E/O connection to Ethiopian music is deeper even than that. The 2000 release, More Beautiful Than Death (Accurate Records, 2000), contained a three-part Ethiopian Suite, composed by three different Ethiopian composers. And then in 2002, Afro- Cubism (Accurate Records) contained a song written by Teshome Meteku.

Nalbandian the Ethiopian was largely recorded in the National Theater of Ethiopia in Addis Ababa in a live concert setting with a lineup augmented by Ethiopian vocalists and local players. Other tracks were recorded later in Troy, N.Y., and Calgary.

While not a dance band in the style of Count Basie or Glenn Miller, neither is the Either / Orchestra the kind of "serious concert" outfit that the postwar Stan Kenton or Woody Herman bands represented.

If not in sound, then perhaps in philosophical approach, the E/O is most akin to Basie's outfit starting in the mid-1950s: A concert band that swings like crazy. There has always been a sense of fun that permeates E/O recordings, and that certainly holds true here, even as they play period pieces in as respectful a manner as possible.

The tracks featuring a singer (in the national Ethiopian language of Amharic) are the ones that have the most distinctive Ethiopian sound. On "Yèné Hassab," the sinuous melody played on clarinet behind the vocals of Girma Negash, both backed by minor harmonies, sets it apart from the Western canon.

Elsewhere, some of the instrumental takes on Ethiopian tracks—"Hulèt wèdo ayhonem," for instance—are pretty firmly in the jazz canon, with more nods to Western electronica than the cultural roots of the composition.

And "Mambo No. 1" is an intriguing mash-up of Cuban, Ethiopian and jazz—swirling, swinging, joyous, perhaps a song that only the Either/Orchestra could play.