[1] The compilation was curated by Dominic Raymond-Barker and Phil Stanton, co-founder of the World Music Network, who was also the producer.

[3] The compilation's release was met with positive reviews, with Robert Christgau including it in his top albums of 2012.

[4] Both Christgau and Deanne Sole of PopMatters compared the album with Buda Musique's Éthiopiques series (which had reached 27 volumes by 2012), with Sole discussing its role in creating the sense of age now attributed by Western world music listeners to Ethiopian music (which she calls "uncanny"), and how most tracks on the Rough Guide album are in fact by the Ethiopian diaspora and foreigners.

[8][1][5] Howard Male of The Independent said the album is one of the occasional Rough Guide compilations to "hit the bull's eye" and called Disc Two's Invisible System "arguably the most experimental Ethio-fusion project of them all.

"[6] This disc was the focus of BBC Music's review, where Robin Denselow called the tracks "boldly unusual" and "impressively original stuff".