They’ll Invent a Substance or a Machine, Ervin Hatibi

Soon they’ll invent a substanceOr a machine, who knows, women will succeed,And men will, too,In slimming magically, “butterflies of some tragic drinkThat go blind inside the chalice of youth,”In losing weight, their exact dimensions will scorn us.The sweat of the architect physician will drip, like a compass,On that boiled rose,That bourgeois French revolutionWhich divides the

Ajdin Asllan – Valle Devollice

“Muzike Shqiptare e Drejtuar Prej Ajdin Asllan (Leskoviku)” reads the label to this slightly mysterious and certainly scarce 12″ 78rpm record on the American Mi-Re Rekord label. The sentence means, “Albanian Music Directed by Ajdin Asllan, of Leskoviku,” and from there we can begin to delve into the music, and the record’s origins. The piece,

Z. Kjuj Pora Fieri – Sgrehua Mahmudi

About a year ago, I posted a rare example of Albanian dance music (closely related to Epirotic music from Greece) recorded in the United States by Albanian-Americans. Now it’s time for some music from the same period, this time recorded in Albania ca. 1929. If you are unfamiliar with this particular type of Albanian music, it could