Article Contributed by Gratefulweb
Published on 2026-04-17
Photo: K8A Woradj Alle artwork
Some albums feel less like releases and more like journeys. K8A, the solo project of New York-based violinist, composer, and bandleader Kaethe Hostetter, arrives with exactly that spirit on her debut solo album Woradj Alle: Impressions of Ethiopia for Solo Violin and Electronics, available digitally and on vinyl April 20, 2026.
Hostetter’s music grows out of eleven years living and collaborating in Ethiopia, where she immersed herself in the country’s rich musical traditions while expanding her own artistic language. As a founding member of Debo Band and QWANQWA, she has been performing Ethiopian music for more than two decades. With Woradj Alle, she builds on that legacy by reimagining Ethiopian songs through live-looped violin and electronics.
The album unfolds as a hypnotic, ritual-like performance that transforms the violin into an immersive sonic landscape, refracting Ethiopian classics through dub, psych rock, and avant improvisation. It is not fusion, but transmission—music that blurs memory, place, and time.
Available on all digital platforms and on vinyl via Domino Sound, the release offers a deeply personal sonic document shaped by lived experience.
“This collection of musical vignettes is based on my time in Ethiopia, the place I called home for 11 years,” Kaethe explains. “The phrase ‘Woradj Alle’ is one of the first colloquial expressions I learned upon arriving in Addis Ababa, used on public transportation, simply meaning ‘let me off right around here.’ In choosing this name, I invite you to join me on the rickety minibus journey through my time in Ethiopia, and step off ‘the bus’ into scenarios, atmospheres, and soundscapes that describe moments I experienced, people I met, and other lasting impressions, striking and mundane.”
Classically trained and forged in the avant-jazz and improvisation scenes of Boston and New York, Hostetter followed her ears to Addis Ababa in 2009. There she founded a music school and assembled some of the city’s most accomplished musicians in QWANQWA, the acclaimed ensemble that has since released three albums and toured Europe and North America repeatedly. Songlines praised the group’s most recent album as “absolutely irresistible.”
Beyond her ensemble work, Hostetter has collaborated with Fred Frith, Butch Morris, Tomeka Reid, Ava Mendoza, Thalia Zedek, Teddy Afro, and many more. In 2026, she was awarded a residency at Brooklyn performance venue Roulette, where she will debut the new solo album live this April.
First Single & Official Video
“Musicawi Silt”
Second Single & Official Video
“Belomi Benna” — out now!
Learn more at www.kaethehostetter.com.
