Algeria

Country: Algeria
Government: Presidential republic
Capital: Algiers
Official languages: Arabic
Population: 33.3 million

While browsing the net for music from Algeria I'm happy to discover that I already have an Algerian song on my computer as a part of a "best of" collection from an old friend. The genre is rai and the artist is Cheb Kahled. The guy is really successful though and making a good effort with lyrics promoting women's rights and democracy. So it says on Wikipedia at least!

Not much luck with some of the other popular music from Algeria, it's with great joy I start to listen to a band called Gnawa Diffusion. Check out the song Saharagga and come back here and say you don't like those beats.

My personal favorite - a nice mix of some traditional Algerian instruments and a good portion of reggae - is included in the post.

Albania

Country: Albania
Government: Parliamentary republic
Capital: Tirana
Official languages: Albanian
Population: 3.6 million


I started out by browsing through my rather limited collection of Balkan songs but all artist were from either Romania or Serbia so I started to google instead.

After a couple of hit and miss ones I found the clarinetist Laver Bariu who's here laying quickfingered and mourning melodies over a minimalistic one-chord drone:ish wall of sound.




And another more upbeat and non-instrumental.


And to not totally dedicate this post to old men with old instruments I'll also include Albanias own destinys child, Elvana Gjata.