Albanian Urban Music

Available for over a year

Heading off in the footsteps of folklorist AL Lloyd, Lucy Duran visits Albania to record the little known urban music of a country that was closed to the outside world for almost 50 years. Lucy attends a garden party in the capital Tirana, where some of the city's best musicians get together over a glass of the local tipple, raki. She visits the Skanderberg castle in the town of Kruja, where the long standing vocal ensemble The Old Men of Kruja reflect on how life has changed since the fall of communism. Back in Tirana at a bar in the Bloku area, once home to the Party oligarchs but now the party capital of the city, she meets the Folk-Hip Hop group Westside Family, who are bringing traditional music up to date. Finally she heads to the town of Korca in the South of the country to attend a rehearsal of Grupi Lira, a choir that sings the patriotic serenades that are the trademark sound of the most cultured city in Albania.