Playing longheld single chords, tambourine on foot, reed at the ready, vocal melodies climbing the peaks of his range, only to glissando down to heartbroken planes, Pellumb Meta takes us on an Albanian music journey from his living room. We are in Tirana, the small Balkan state’s hypnotic capital, which put us under its spell.
I found Pellumb on my bike ride through Europe, which had up to this point been relatively music-less, so we were chuffed to bits when the laouto player sprung from the sofa to transport armfuls of stunning instruments from his bedroom. His wife and daughter filling every inch of table space with delicious treats, newspaper clippings and old photographs from the country’s isolation years under the dictatorial rule of Enver Hoxha from 1944 to 1985. A time when, despite the Stalinist regime’s sponsorship of folk music and dance ensembles, records were like gold dust as even electricity was rationed.
Consequently, traditional music even today is relatively unknown outside of Albania. So when the celebrated American record producer Joe Boyd and his wife Andrea Goertler put together and financed the folk ensemble Saz’iso using their wedding dowry, Meta was delighted to participate and share his nation’s music with the world.
There’s something deeply eerie and soulful about the songs the multi-instrumentalist plays, telling tales of love and loss, thieving and treachery, and it’s while hearing them that I'm reminded of the unique way songs can deepen one’s understanding of a place.
After a day together, the maestro affectionately sends me on our way, but not before teaching me a few songs on laouto and generously gifting me what I think is a small fyell, a double-piped penny whistle. And in a last moment of generosity, Meta finally tries to give me his coat when I (ever the Englishman abroad) mention the brisk weather.
- Olly
17 сен 2024
