Gavin B.

Balkan Music with Electronic Beats


German deejay Shantel (on left) mixes the traditional music of Romania with techno rhythms

Shantel (real name- Stefan Hantel) is a Frankfort based deejay and producer who has family roots in the Bukovina region of Romania. He originally gained notoriety for his work with gypsy brass bands, but began remixing traditional Balkan music with techno and house music beats.

I Am Exactly What You're Looking For from his 1998 album Higher Than The Funk has a breezy downtempo sound of trip hop music.



Tosca Session is reminiscent of the layered industrial beats used by artists like Bjork and Aphex Twin and the song is probably more ambient music than techno.



Discography of Shantel

Super Mandarine (1994)
Club Guerilla (1995)
Auto Jumps & Remixes (1997)
EP (1997)
No. 2 (1997)
"II" EP (1998)
Higher than the Funk (1998)
Oh So Lovely EP (1998)
Oh So Lovely Remixes (1998)
Backwood (2001)
Great Delay (2001)
Inside (2001)
Bucovina (2003)
Disko (2003)
Bucovina Club Vol. 2 (2005)
Gypsy Beats and Balkan Bangers (2006)
Disko Partizani (2007)
Disko Partizani Remixes (2008)
Planet Paprika (2009)

Shantel was fairly prolific up until 2009 and I read somewhere that he's currently not recording and he's pursuing more traditional forms of Balkan and gypsy music.

There's very little biographical and background information on Shantel and very few examples of his music on YouTube. I had to upload the featured songs in my journal entry myself because there was so little of his music on YouTube.

__________________
There are two types of music: the first type is the blues and the second type is all the other stuff.
Townes Van Zandt

Gavin B.

Saint Etienne: Europop Meets House Music


Saint Etienne vocalist Sarah Cracknell in concert

Saint Etienne was one of the earliest British groups to experiment with indie pop electronica. The trio had the highly conceptual idea of fusing the pop music of Swinging London of the Sixties with contemporary club music rhythms. I befriended the band during their first American tour by writing a highly enthusiastic review of their live concert for an underground Boston weekly paper. I've managed to stay on their mailing list for over 20 years and I still get invited to their album release parties but I've never attended one because the cost of airfare to London is prohibitive.

One of my favorite songs is one they recorded for the soundtrack of Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar's 2006 film Volver staring the lovely Penélope Cruz. It doesn't really have a Spanish musical flavor but it fits like a glove into the theme of Almodóvar's film. The title of the track is Good Thing.



Earlier this year (2013) Saint Etienne released a four cd box set entitled Words and Music by Saint Etienne. The first cd was an all new album and the other 3 cds were remixes of many of Saint Etienne's classic hits. One remix, Soft Like Me was a pleasant surprise to me because I really didn't like the original version of the song when it appeared on their 2002 album Finisterre.



East German deejay Paul Van Dyk is so obsessed with Saint Etienne's song Tell Me Why , he's done a dozen different remixes of it over the years. From my perspective, Tell Me Why is the most perfect pop song I've ever heard. The lyrics have the deceptive simplicity of a Zen koan and Van Dyk's angular minimalist remix underscores the moody and mysterious atmospherics of the song.



St. Etienne Discography
Foxbase Alpha (1991)
So Tough (1993)
Tiger Bay (1994)
Good Humor (1998)
Sound of Water (2000)
Finisterre (2002)
Tales from Turnpike House (2005)
Words and Music by Saint Etienne (2012)

__________________
There are two types of music: the first type is the blues and the second type is all the other stuff.
Townes Van Zandt

Lisnaholic

I´m sorry to say that you´ve been proved right about the lack of attention this thread is receiving, Gavin

I´m still catching up with artists you´ve been posting, and I was pleased to recognize the name of Julietta Venegas, who has had quite a few pop-song hits here in Mexico, the biggest being Sal y limon(=salt and lemon). I like the way, with her voice and manner, she comes across as the girl next door rather than some mega-star, but I like her best of all when she´s playing the accordion:-


^ I guess this is an example of her pre-outernational style.

Another name I´ve heard before is Juana Molina, because she was mentioned here some time ago:-

http://www.musicbanter.com/country-f...ml#post1112615

Thanks for the reminder; I really like that combination of simple-but-strange in her music.

__________________
"Am I enjoying this moment? I know of it and perhaps that is enough." - Sybille Bedford, 1953

misspoptart

Ahhh I so love Julieta also! My favorite song from her is "Te Voy A Mostrar." And Gavin, I'm following your thread! Don't give up. ^^;

misspoptart

Sorry for the double post, but this is such a shame! Although the only song from Shantel that I absolutely love is Disko Partizani, I would probably love so many new things if more of his stuff was out there.

Thanks again for starting this thread, Gavin!

BTW, I noticed in the Tosca Session song, the vocal part is counting in Japanese, forward, backward, and mixed up. How odd! I wonder where he got that idea..

Gavin B.

Thanks for your kind comments Misspopart. I have no intention of dropping the thread... I was simply on holiday for the past week. I'm hoping to put together a new post by sometime tomorrow.

__________________
There are two types of music: the first type is the blues and the second type is all the other stuff.
Townes Van Zandt

misspoptart

You're welcome, bro! I'm looking forward to it.

Gavin B.

From Italy Comes the Nu-Jazz/Lounge/Trip Hop/Brazilian/Sitar Bossa Nova/Whatever Music of Bebo Best


Photo: Bebo Best

Italy has a long and distinguished history of producing brilliant soundtrack composers dating back to Nino Rota who wrote the lush musical scores to Fellini's films. In the late Sixties, a syndicate of abundantly gifted Italian soundtrack composers like Ennino Morricone, Allasandro Allasandroni, Francis Lai, Piero Puccioni and Piero Ulimiani dominated the European film community. Then in the late 80s, the first generation son of an Italian American immigrant fish market owner in Brooklyn, Angelo Badalamenti, became internationally famous for his innovative soundtracks to the films of David Lynch.

Italian nu-jazz savant, Bebo Best has carried on the Italian soundtrack and lounge tradition into the post Millennium era. As a longtime aficionado of Italian film soundtrack composers, I find it odd that Italians seem to lack the ambition to dominate any single musical genre, except for soundtrack and lounge music. Maybe I shouldn't be surprised because after building the Colosseum and conquering most of the known world, the Italians pretty much called it a day and decided to kick back and play soccer, design cool clothes and become masters the culinary arts. Being good at composing soundtracks seems to follow the Italian's post-Roman Empire tradition of being brilliant at doing a very narrow range of specialist endeavors and to hell with any other human aspirations. Actually it's a pretty good approach to living well, when you think about it.

Bebo Best is not a soundtrack composer per se, but has written the scores to several films. His main creative energies go into conducting and playing in the Super Lounge Orchestra, a band that plays music that strongly resembles...well, you got it... Italian soundtrack music. Bebo Best has a talent for producing music that takes a wide array of genres and places them into Cuisinart blender to produce a mind-bending brew of music that defies musical categorization.

Soronno On the Rocks is a musical tour de force that blends nu-jazz, bossa nova, film soundtrack, lounge and trip hop genres:



On his album, Jazz for Imaginary Movies Bebo Best dedicated his song Paris A La Nuit to the legendary French film director Francois Truffaut. Indeed the song sounds like it would fit like a glove into the musical score of any number of Truffaut's film in the early Seventies.



Best's cover of Soul Bossa Nova is his tribute to Quincy Jones, another great producer and film soundtrack composer.



The Super Lounge Orchestra is a mix of French, Italian, Brazilian and British musicians who play with a bristling intensity that is quite unlike the ambient, background playing of many film soundtrack ensembles.

After over 180 cds with personalities as David Torn and Gilberto Gil, and appearing in projects beside artists as Jon Hassel, Michael Nyman, Wim Mertens, Nitin Sawhney, Trilok Gurtu, Sinead O' Connor, Mario Biondi, Ruichy Sakamoto, Frank Zappa, Marisa Monte, Bebel Gilberto, Nicola Conte, Norah Jones, Fabrizio Bosso, many soundtracks for films and TV, Bebo Best has already gained a place of honor for himself on the European music scene for his wise and original use of electronics and ethnic music that distinguished his works. One word of advice to Mr. Best: hire a publicist in the United States... Nobody has heard of you in America... which is a lowdown shame.

__________________
There are two types of music: the first type is the blues and the second type is all the other stuff.
Townes Van Zandt

misspoptart

I love! It reminds me of a happy blend between Bonobo & Parov Stelar. Nu-jazz is shaping up to be one of my favorite genres. I am a background music whore. That is, I'll sell myself in order to have a collection of music that can be played in the background during meals, parties, and even work at the office. Bebo makes a great addition to that collection. So danceable, too!

Thanks Gav!

Gavin B.

Outernational Nu-Jazz from Berlin


Photo Above: Jazzanova

The Jazzanova musical collective has been a fixture on the Berlin club scene since the mid-Nineties when six deejays, Alexander Barck, Claas Brieler, Roskow Kretschmann, Stefan Leisering, Axel Reinemer, and Jürgen von Knoblauch met while spinning at a club called Delicious Donuts. Their initial goal was to bring the underexposed jazz-funk genre to more listeners but since the Millennium they've expanded their musical territory into the unchartered regions of Nu-Jazz, Sountrack Music, Lounge Trip Hop, Acid Jazz, House & Broken Beat.

Early on, Jazzanova made their musical reputation in Berlin's clubs as trip hop artists who remixed downtempo jazz songs. They spend seven years doing remixes exclusively before releasing their first album of original material in 2002. Le Jardin Secret is one of their remix songs from the period between 1995 and 2002.



Last year's The Funkhaus Sessions was their most provocative musical statement to date and the album shows them at the peak of their powers as producers, arrangers and players. It's a musical collaboration between Jazzanova and the sublime Detroit based vocalist Paul Randolph (aka Randolph of Lonely Eden fame). A lot of the material is reminiscent of Seventies era funk-jazz ensembles like Roy Ayer's Ubiquity and Gil Scott Heron's Midnight Band. Let It Go is from The Funkhaus Session album.




Much has been said by music critics about the stagnant state of the jazz scene but apparently those critics aren't listening to Jazzanova, the future of jazz.

Discography

Albums

In Between (2002)
Of All the Things (2008)
Funkhaus Studio Sessions (2012)

Compilations

Belle et Fou (2007)
Blue Note Trip: Scrambled/Mashed (2006)
Broad Casting (2006)
Paz e Futebol (2006)
Boom Clicky Boom Clack (single) (2006)
Glow and Glare / Dance the Dance / Let Your Heart Be Free (Ame and Atjazz remixes) (2005)
The Remixes 2002-2005 (2005)
Blue Note Trip: Lookin Back/Movin on (2005)
Mixing (2004)
Remixed (2003)
Soon (2002)
That Night (2002)
The Remixes (1997-2000)

__________________
There are two types of music: the first type is the blues and the second type is all the other stuff.
Townes Van Zandt