Shantel
Bucovina Club Vol. 2
Cat.-No.: AY CD 06

A New Sound is Here to Stay

Two years after the acclaimed and award-winning Bucovina Club Album (which won the most prestigious French music critics' prize), Shantel has been inspired by the enthusiasm of audiences and critics to set his sights on surpassing his fantastic debut album. This time, the holistic approach of this artist-musician-producer and DJ comes across even more clearly. 5 of the 16 tracks are original recordings and 5 are exclusive mixes. Only 6 of them have ever been released anywhere else -- for the most part on rare and hard-to-find albums.

Bucovina Club Vol. 2

This is no mere follow-up sampler offering a few hurriedly compiled tracks. Bucovina Club is right up there in contemporary pop culture. It has thrown the stereotypes and clichés overboard, putting a whole new slant on the way we think about the "wild east" and Gypsy culture. Bucovina Club is a heady mix of electronic club music and vibrant Roma music.

The second Bucovina Club album brings you the mood and feel of the Bucovina Club in the small hours when hundreds of dance-hungry people are still going strong. These 16 tracks are the ultimate sweat-drenching floorfillers of the party. Shantel's own tracks feature top stars of the Gypsy and Balkan music scene: Boban Markovic and his son Marko, Jony Iliev, the all-star line-up Bucovina Club Orkestar, the exclusive remixes feature Mahala Raï Banda, Sandy Lopicic Orkestar and French-Romanian actress Rona Hartner (of Tony Gatlif's film Gadjo Dilo) while the other tracks present a host of famous artists and some names to watch out for: Dr. Nelle Karajlic, Balkan Beat Box, Slonovski Bal and Goran Bregovic.

When Frankfurt-based Freestyle and Electronica DJ Stefan Hantel started churning up his eclectic Mix Beats from Brazil and North Africa with Brass Madness, Roma ballads and Balkan dances, dance addicts just couldn't get enough. A trip to Bucovina, where his mother's family originate, was a real ear-opener: What he had previously heard on records as an exotic sound from a faraway place was suddenly physically tangible: wild brass ensembles, singers with soulful voices, melancholy bluesy ballads and instrumental melodies, the frenzied dances of Kolo, Hora and Cocek (a Balkan variation on belly-dancing).

"Czernovitz was Sundays that began with Schubert and ended with pistol duels. Czernovitz, half way between Kiev and Bucharest, Krakow and Odessa, was the secret capital of Europe, where butchers' daughters sang coloratura and taxi drivers argued about literature. It was where the pavements were swept with bouquets of roses and there were more bookshops than bakeries. Czernovitz was a constant intellectual discourse that would spawn a new aesthetic theory with every dawn and refute it again by dusk. It was where dogs bore the names of Greek gods and chickens scratched poems in the earth. Czernovitz was a pleasure steamer with a Ukrainian crew, German officers and Jewish passengers plying a route between east and west under an Austrian flag. Czernovitz was a dream. The happy marriage between the Hapsburg dynasty and the German-speaking Jewish bourgeoisie made this outpost of the Austro-Hungarian Empire on the fringes of the Bessarabian steppes and economic and cultural hub of Eastern Europe." German novelist Georg Heinzen quoted by Ernst Hofbauer in "Verwehte Spuren, Von Lemberg bis Czernowitz ein Trümmerfeld der Erinnerungen" (published by Ibera Verlag, Vienna 1999) The cosmopolitan cultural and ethnic diversity of prewar Bucovina has been an important source of inspiration for Shantel. Czernovitz, the old capital of Bucovina, city of great poets and thinkers such as Rose Ausländer, Paul Celan and Selma Meerbaum-Eisinger, and famous musicians such as the German-Jewish tenor Josef Schmidt, the Caruso of the East, at the heart of the Bucovina region, was the home of his ancestors. Though the years of Nazi occupation, and later Stalinism, have irrevocably destroyed what was once a unique multicultural atmosphere, there is still an enormous interest here in nurturing those roots. By chance, a copy of the Bucovina Club CD managed to find its way to Bucovina. Musicians there were astonished to discover that a musician and DJ living so far away would draw upon these traditions. Eventually, in November 2004, there was a memorable homecoming. At the invitation of the Mayor of Czernovitz, during the heady Ukrainian autumn of the Orange Revolution, Shantel performed with the Jewish Orchestra of Czernovitz and musicians of the Mahala Raï Banda on former Austria Square to a crowd of ten thousand young people, some of whom had brought along their orange banners. The musicians had prepared intensely for this event and saw it as an opportunity of continuing where the old traditions had left off. Further invitations followed, prompted by the mutual wish to revive this rich cultural experience. Shantel is currently planning a more in-depth collaboration with musicians from Czernovitz.

There is another inspiration that links Shantel's previous life as an Electronica producer with the Gypsies. The Gypsies, with their seminal contribution to the music of the Balkans, actually invented the art of sampling. On their journeys through many lands and cultures, they adopted a hookline here, a rhythm there, picking up fragments of melodies and choruses along the way, and putting them together to create something entirely their own. Towards the end of the twentieth century, sampling became the production method of a very different scene: Electronica and Dancemusic.

The first of the Bucovina Club anthologies, and the Bucovina Club nights, first held at Frankfurt's Schauspiel, then in many other cities, were an instant success. And no wonder: the Bucovina Club is pure, naked euphoria, pure, naked euphoria. It brings together all age groups and nationalities. Not in a politically correct, happy-clappy multiculturalist way, but by packing a direct and visceral punch that really gets people moving. The parties take up where the ecstatic raves of the House and Techno generation left off.

The upshot of all this was the legendary Electric Gypsyland tour with Taraf de Haidouks and Mahala Raï Banda that took Shantel and his heroes to more than 30 gigs from France to Morocco to La Reunion, and points in between. He also performed with the Boban Markovic Orkestar, Frank London's Klezmer Brass Allstars, the Sandy Lopicic Orkestar, Slonovski Bal and the Kocani Orkestar, in concerts that culminated with his DJ set and jamming sessions with the musicians.

Bucovina Club rules!

Shantel has brought the Balkans to clubland. The Bucovina Club has triggered a whole new wave of pop and club culture that has adopted the sounds of Eastern Europe without any of the usual clichés, ethnological ballast or folksy traditionalism. A new sound is here to stay. Shantel has managed to avoid the obvious pitfall of simply plundering sources arbitrarily. He shows real respect for the roots of the music he uses. His aim is to develop it and transpose it to an urban context. This is where club music meets traditional music, what they have in common is the fact that neither of them is ever static, but constantly changing and adapting to the spirit of the times. Backed by his own experience of producing electronic music, Shantel treats these musical styles in the same way as a HipHop or Dancemusic production. It is not in the sterile atmosphere of the concert hall, but in the setting of a club or party in some unusual location that the sound takes on its own special magic. And it's a sound that has taken Europe's in-places by storm, from the Nouveau Casino and Favela Chic (Paris), to the Futuro Flamenco/Nottinghill Arts Club (London), P.P.C. (Graz), from the MTV Festival at Bucherest's biggest club to the legendary Transmusicales in Rennes, from Tel-Aviv to the Balkan Fever-Festival (Vienna), as well as such hallowed temples of high culture as the state theatres of Vienna, Hamburg and Stuttgart, the Berlin state opera house, the Hebbel Theater Berlin and the Vienna Festival. Many cities now have regular Club evenings, among them Zurich (Xtra), Nuremberg (K 4) and Frankfurt (Schauspiel), not to mention the annual Bucovina Club Open-Air and Jardin du Monde at Frankfurt's huge Museumsuferfest, that attracts thousands. As the closing act at the Station-to-Station Festivals in Florence, more than 10,000 people were drawn into the world of the Bucovina Club.

International Acts are queuing up to be produced or remixed by Shantel: Taraf de Haidouks, Mahala Raï Banda, Zdob si Zdub, Slonovski Bal. Shantel's tracks "Bucovina" and "Dimineata" from the first Bucovina Club anthology have been included in the latest compilations: "Head On OST", (D) "FM 4 Sound Selection" (A), "popcultureVol. 1" (A), "Future World Funk" (UK), "Coney Island Love" (USA), "German Nights" (D), "Luftkastellet" (DK) and "Emporio Armani Café Vol. 3" (I). These days, there is hardly any documentary or report about the Balkans on German television that manages to get by without "Bucovina" or "Dimineata", and even the film industry has embraced the Bucovina sound, as in Dani Levy's "Go for Zucker!" or Fred Kelem's "Krisana".

TRACKLISTING

Shantel "Intro" and "Ya Rayah", Balkan Mix Feat. Boban Markovis Orkestar and Jony Iliev, Jannis Karis and Richie Winkler Original recording for this album

Shantel and Bucovina Club Orkestar "Ciganka Medley" Original recording for this album

Shantel "Dunarea" Original recording for this album

Shantel "Borino Oro" feat. Boban Markovic Orkestar and Todor "Tosa" Vukmirovic Original recording for this album

Shantel "Bucovina" - Haaksman and Haaksman Soca Bogle Mix Only available on vinyl (Essay Recordings, AY 02)

Balkan Beat Box: "Bulgarian Chicks" Only available on vinyl (Essay Recordings, AY 05), to be released on Essay Recordings' Balkan Beat Box album in autumn 2005

Sandy Lopicic Orkestar "Da Zna Zora", Shantel Remix Previously unreleased. Additional production and mix by Shantel

Mahala Ras Banda vs. Shantel "Mahalageasca", Bucovina Dub Previously unreleased. Additional production and mix by Shantel

Fanfare Ciocarlia "Ailili" - Shantel Remix Previously unreleased. Additional production and mix by Shantel

Rona Hartner and DJ Click vs Shantel "Inel Inel de Aur" - Bucovina Dub Previously unreleased. Additional production and mix by Shantel

Dr. Nelle Karajlic, Dejan Sparavalo and Vojislav Aralica "Duj Sandale" From "OST Music from Black Cat White Cat by Emir Kusturica"

Slonovski Bal: "Hosemo li u Sabac?"

Slonovski Bal:"Sabacko Kolo" From Slonovski Bal "Balkan Merak" (BalBazar, BAZ-1378)

Fanfare Ciocarlia "Godzilla" feat. Jony Iliev From Fanfare Ciocarlia "Gili Garabdi"

Goran Bregovic "Maki, Maki" feat. Saban Bajramovic From Goran Bregovic "Tales and Songs from Weddings and Funerals"

ABOUT SHANTEL

Former Frankfurt downtempo pioneer, today celebrated impressario of the famous Bucovina Club and considered Europe's chief selector DJ for ecstatic Balkan grooves. With his release "Bucovina Club", he showed that a boundary-free spirit of Balkan and South Eastern Europe music tunes was what a world, bored of luke warm electronica and a retromanic dancefloor culture, was waiting for: Big emotions, vodka excesses, passion and plenty of slack lyrics, all blend together into a splendid 65 min mix compilation. Bucovina Club is probably the most promising party and music concept since the advent of acid house. Believe it! Shantel is currently working on tracks for a new 12" plus more material, all to be released on "Bucovina Club 2", out in 2005

Former Frankfurt downtempo pioneer, today celebrated impressario of the famous Bucovina Club and considered Europe's chief selector DJ for ecstatic Balkan grooves. With his release "Bucovina Club", he showed that a boundary-free spirit of Balkan and South Eastern Europe music tunes was what a world, bored of luke warm electronica and a retromanic dancefloor culture, was waiting for: Big emotions, vodka excesses, passion and plenty of slack lyrics, all blend together into a splendid 65 min mix compilation. Bucovina Club is probably the most promising party and music concept since the advent of acid house. Believe it! Shantel is currently working on tracks for a new 12" plus more material, all to be released on "Bucovina Club 2", out in 2005

Former Frankfurt downtempo pioneer, today celebrated impressario of the famous Bucovina Club and considered Europe's chief selector DJ for ecstatic Balkan grooves. With his release "Bucovina Club", he showed that a boundary-free spirit of Balkan and South Eastern Europe music tunes was what a world, bored of luke warm electronica and a retromanic dancefloor culture, was waiting for: Big emotions, vodka excesses, passion and plenty of slack lyrics, all blend together into a splendid 65 min mix compilation. Bucovina Club is probably the most promising party and music concept since the advent of acid house. Believe it! Shantel is currently working on tracks for a new 12" plus more material, all to be released on "Bucovina Club 2", out in 2005