Geni Skendo Trio

Geni Skendo was born in a pre-internet Albania. With the Adriatic Sea in the distance, his hometown of Tirana felt parochial growing up—ceilings and plateaus everywhere. Skendo wanted an escape and he had two: music and weightlifting. For him, music was an act of rebellion, a mode of transcendence, a portal to other realities. Or as he puts it, “I got high on music.”

Skendo grew up studying both Western classical and traditional Albanian music. He absorbed the latter’s polyphony, Middle Eastern tinges, and wild dance rhythms. But he always had a thirst for new sounds. Through films and radio broadcasts, Skendo felt like he could visit other cultures through sound. He soaked in tunes from Ireland, Scotland, Brittany, America, and beyond. They would beam from the radio to his ears, on through his fingers, and into the rooms he longed to transform and eventually escape. Songs were bottled messages,…