‘Redi Hasa’

When Tirana heard Nirvana, the Country of the Eagles was suffering the consequences of the civil war. The mighty magnet of “Nevermind” pulled out all the good iron from the ruins of a regime that had been banning the entire Western music, from the Beatles to Milli Vanilli, for half a century. But still, the banned music was circulating underground, as secret and precious as an audio samizdat. The young Albanians knew nothing about the paraphernalia of grunge, nothing about angora sweaters and flannel checkered shirts. They didn’t know that the Teen Spirit - the spirit that moved them to a risky life - was just the deodorant which Kurt smelled of. They contented with those lifer loafs hided a file to cut the bars with. Among those young musicians, there was Redi Hasa.

In the daytime, he studied at the Tirana Conservatory of Music on a cello provided by the State. At night, he played the only electric bass in town, which had been sent to him from Italy by his older brother. There, in those night sessions between smoking bunkers and pulled out wire fences, the Nirvana tunes challenged their truth. Many years have passed since then. As cello soloist in the Ludovico Einaudi band, Redi is touring worldwide or recording with rockstars like Robert Plant. But still, every time he gets face to face with his cello, he pulls out the stories that his instrument keeps on shielding like crown jewels. This is the case of “The stolen cello”, Redi's first solo album. Now he comes up playing “his” Nirvana, turning their barbed wire melodies, their heresy, their jeopardy, into a majestically human sound. 

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