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  • The Paris Review

    My Albania

    by Brian Cullman May 24, 2017 5 minutes

    A postcard of Albania, ca. 1910.

    Some people wake up at four in the morning wondering if they’ve left the light on in the kitchen. I wake up in a cold sweat wondering if there’s some country that I’ve forgotten, some place on Earth that’s slipped through my fingers. For many years now, I’ve collected music from the farthest reaches of the planet. I’ve found tapes of music from islands in Indonesia where drummers build their own instruments and eat them after each performance; records of Eskimos who sing into each others’ mouths; forty-fives of South African bands that sound just like the Sir Douglas Quintet; and records of Mongolian singers who can hit three notes simultaneously. When I can’t sleep, I go wading through my collection like

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