Abstract
This intriguing addition to the field of musicology brings together several issues that will be of interest to a wider audience of communication and media scholars, including memory, emotions and migration. In the opening chapter, Pistrick situates his study of migration music in post-socialist Albania vis-a-vis several existing bodies of literature, arguing that his approach departs from established traditions in a number of ways: it liberates the interplay of music and migration from a narrow focus on diasporic culture, and instead highlights the intertwining of the home and away, as well as moves beyond the exclusively text-oriented modes of analysis and focuses on the ways in which songs are enacted, embodied and performed, often in emotionally charged ways. In Chapter 2, Pistrick goes on to outline the key characteristics of his object of study, namely the practice of multipart signing, which is a central aspect of popular life in rural parts of southern Albania, and serves as a sonic background to dramatic socio-cultural changes, including those tied to migration. Chapter 3 maps the different ‘absences’ created by migration, and the ways in which musical performances act as a means of coping with them. Chapter 4 returns, somewhat confusingly, to issues of context, and offers a broad historical overview of migration and mobility in Albania, before considering how this history is reflected in local mythologies and oral histories. Chapter 5 returns to the main subject of the book, and seeks to unpack the different emotional states expressed through musical performances, their gendered nature, and their links with nostalgia. The focus on nostalgia continues in Chapter 6, which functions as the centrepiece of the book and examines the intertwining of music and migration in village feasts. The chapter has two main parts, one looking at issues of space and the specific soundscapes established through musical performances, and the other considering the temporal aspects of nostalgic musical performances. Chapter 7 turns to the interface between Albanian migration music and memory, while Chapter 8 brings the investigation to a close by considering how the emotional and mnemonic aspects of music relate to the sphere of death and migration. Although Pistrick’s study could do with clearer signposting and a more elaborated reflection on the wider relevance of the case study, the fascinating material presented in the book certainly merits to be considered closely by media scholars, particularly those interested in the mediation of emotion, memory and migrant experiences. It is also worth noting that the book is accompanied by a multimedia disc comprising several video and sound examples taken from the field.