“From the very start, Margjeka’s bluesy vocals soar as he picks at his guitar. Instantly memorable and filled with soul and vibrant imagery…”
Born in Tropoia, a small town nestled in the Albanian Alps, Armand Margjeka’s musical influences were drip fed during his formative years as Western music slowly made its way into a country still reeling from the fall of the Berlin Wall. Western cinema, MTV Europe, and a fortuitous cassette tape of American pop/rock legends Little Richard, Fats Domino, Jerry Lee Lewis and Elvis Presley taught Margjeka the fundamentals of rock and roll, and subsequently the English language.
The second LP from Armand Margjeka Hummingbird was conceived as An Exhibition of 10 Works representing a series of creative recording sessions with a diverse and talented core of musicians.
Hummingbird is the collective result of Margjeka’s production aesthetic complemented by three-time Grammy award winner Darrell Thorp (Radiohead, Beck, Outkast, Gnarls Barkley), Chris Steffen (Stereophonics, Ben Harper) and Eric Masse (Escondido, Rayland Baxter). The album marks the continued intentional direction established by Margjeka’s debut solo album Margo Margo (2011) of creating honest art endeavors without preconceived parameters.
As a songwriter and producer, Margjeka has developed a reputation for his fascination with the process of making great records; the intentional, incidental, and accidental sounds and inspirations embedded in the act of creating and ultimately embodied by the created work.
“Some call it getting up and going to work everyday, others illustrate it as feeding the monster. I’m not advocating some cheap cop-out like ‘rejection is art’, but rejection is innate to this world of exposing fears. The voice echoing ‘this isn’t good enough’ gives meaning/direction to my search and keeps me honest,” says Margjeka.
Hummingbird releases June 10th on Birmingham’s PIPEANDGUN and Communicating Vessels and is available on Vinyl, CD, and Digital formatting.