Iso-polyphony — the UNESCO-listed singing tradition of southern Albania

There is a moment at a southern Albanian gathering — a wedding, a festival, a long table after dinner — when several men lock eyes, one voice climbs out alone, another answers, and beneath them the rest of the group settles onto a single held note that seems to rise from the ground itself. That drone is the iso, and the music built over it, Albanian iso-polyphony, was proclaimed a UNESCO Masterpiece of the Intangible Heritage of Humanity in 2005.

How it works

This is part-singing without a conductor and, in its purest form, without instruments. One singer — the marrës, the "taker" — carries the melody and the story. A second, the kthyes, or "turner," answers and ornaments. Everyone else holds the iso, the continuous drone that gives the style its name and its uncanny gravity. The songs tell of love, migration, mourning and old battles, and the interplay can run to two, three or four parts.

Tosk and Lab

Two regional styles dominate. Tosk polyphony, from the plains and towns of the south around Përmet and Korçë, tends to be softer and more lyrical, the drone sung on a warm open vowel. Lab polyphony, from the harder country of Labëria behind Vlorë and Kurvelesh, is wilder and more dramatic, sometimes adding a fourth "shaking" voice. Once you have heard both, you feel the difference before you can name it.

Where to hear it

The living heartland is the deep south: Përmet, Gjirokastër, Vlorë, Tepelenë and the villages of Kurvelesh. Your best chance is the folk festival held periodically at Gjirokastër's hilltop castle, which gathers ensembles from across the region, but you may also catch it at a wedding, a saint's day, or simply a taverna where the raki has loosened a table into song. This is no museum piece — it is still, genuinely, how people here sing.