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About The Band

The River Voices is a now-defunct all-woman ensemble of iso-polyphonic vocal music from Çorovodë, Albania. Iso-polyphony is an Albanian musical tradition that has been designated by UNESCO as intangible cultural heritage:

“Traditional Albanian polyphonic music can be divided into two major stylistic groups as performed by the Ghegs of northern Albania and the Tosks and Labs living in the southern part of the country. The term iso is related to the ison of Byzantine church music and refers to the drone accompanying polyphonic singing. The drone is performed in two ways: among the Tosks, it is always continuous and sung on the syllable 'e', using staggered breathing, while among the Labs, the drone is sometimes sung as a rhythmic tone, performed to the text of the song. Rendered mainly by male singers, the music traditionally accompanies a wide range of social events, such as weddings, funerals, harvest feasts, religious celebrations and festivals such as the well-known Albanian folk festival in Gjirokastra.”

Source: UNESCO

In May 2017, our founder Hatim Belyamani was invited to perform as HAT at the Festival Fustanella in Gjirokastra, Albania. Hatim sought to turn this into an opportunity for a Remix ⟷ Culture collaboration with local traditional musicians. The festival organizer happened to also be a manager and was then managing the ensemble showcased here: The River Voices. He arranged for us to meet with the ensemble in their native town of Çorovoda and spend an afternoon with them recording and filming their beautiful a capella music. Through the intermediary of their manager, we paid the musicians for the time they dedicated to these recordings, and agreed to later release the recordings, videos, and sample packs, in accordance with our standard open-access and fair trade model.

A year later, when we were close to ready to release the album, videos, and sample packs, we reached out to the manager requesting that he put us in touch with the musicians. He unfortunately responded by backtracking on our previous agreement, instead pressuring us to not release any of this content because he was working on releasing another album for the ensemble. We attempted to seek an amicable solution, but were unsuccessful. We have since made several attempts to reach out to the manager but he has not responded in years. It appears that the album he had mentioned was never released either, and his management company no longer lists “The River Voices” on their roster. It does not look like “The River Voices” is an active ensemble anymore, though we did find YouTube videos showing one or two of the ensemble members singing/performing with other musicians. We have tried to reach out to the two musicians we found on YouTube and Facebook, but have not yet been successful in re-establishing contact with them.

We decided that it would be a shame not to release this beautiful content, and so we are releasing it in hopes of one day reconnecting with the musicians and ensuring that we continue on this journey together with them.

If you are reading this and would like to help us re-establish contact with these wonderful musicians, please contact us via our contact form.

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