In the mid 1990s, Shantel toured Europe DJing with big names like Richard Dorfmeister. The pair had more and more requests to play in Eastern European cities such as Kiev and Moscow. As Shantel dipped in and out of that part of the world, he felt a growing desire to visit Bucovina, nuzzled in the Carpathian Mountains and the region where his family had emigrated to Germany from. At the end of the 90s, he hopped in a car and went on an adventure which was to influence his music journey irrevocably.

“I was looking for any remains of this mix that was destroyed by nationalism first and then by the Nazi occupation, which killed the ethnic minorities. The Soviets wiped out what remained.”

When Stefan Hantel, aka Shantel, started his DJing career in the freestyle electronica club scene in Frankfurt am Main, he was already producing innovative parties featuring reggae, down-tempo and instrumental hip hop or ‘intelligent techno’ rather than the popular techno predominant in the mainstream clubs.

Shantel’s journeying into Eastern Europe shifted his focus further away from convention. Before the Second World War Bucovina was, according to his grandparents, “cosmopolitan and bohemian… mixed culturally and religiously. I was looking for any remains of this mix that was destroyed by nationalism first and then by the Nazi occupation, which killed the ethnic minorities. The Soviets wiped out what remained.”

“Greeks, Turkish, Jewish, Armenians. Music was the connection between all of them.”

Further travels into the depths of Romania, Bulgaria, Greece, Macedonia, Serbia were made, in search of those lost musical traditions. “It was clear that I could not continue as I did before and I had a strange vision of what to do. I discovered those parts of my family roots, but did not want to create authentic traditional music… I took the idea of the past and transported it into what I grew up with in a more artistic direction while continuing to search for musical roots in those regions which are culturally mixed… giving and taking from each other. For example, Jewish Ottoman, Slavic and the club culture.” With this Bucovina Club volumes 1 and 2 were born and the rest is history.

Travelling remains a fundamental inspiration to Shantel’s work. Always touring, he composes new music while waiting for connections at bus stops or backstage before a sound-check. All around the world, whether in Istanbul, Thessaloniki or Bucharest, he is busy shaping new work. The essence of local markets seeps into his work. Shantel’s discovery of some rebetika recordings from the 1920s in Turkey heavily influenced his latest album. “For me the recordings reflected a ballroom culture. Music accepted by rich and lower classes. Music is always about communication between cultures in the cities. Between different classes, to and from Greeks, Turkish, Jewish, Armenians. Music was the connection between all of them.” This borrowing of musical traditions has existed since mercantilism, presumedly before.

“I don’t want to create something like a machine running with musicians running after beats. It kills the dynamics of the music…”

This lack of authenticity is Shantel’s detractors’ main criticism. “People say about my work that it is not authentic. But what is authentic?” Yet it is also true that very little ‘world music’ these days is genuinely untouched by any other culture. So is this simply musical evolution? Shantel’s latest album, Disko Partizani includes collaborations with some of Europe’s best players including the young Marko Markovic “We have this connection…and wanted to keep the spirit and the sound but make experiments and combine. It was a virtual coming together, but it happened very organically.”

This translates over into the live show for Disko Partizani featuring a ten-piece band including some of the album contributors and is layered with some computer elements on stage. “I don’t want to create something like a machine running with musicians running after beats. It kills the dynamics of the music… We try to perform with a different attitude. It is not an authentic nostalgic concert… It is more of a pop/rock production but not using typical instrumentation.”

Shantel has never given this sort of performance in the UK and as I have said in a previous review, it is hard to know what a UK audience will make of his take on Balkan music, which is really a product of Continental popular culture crossbred with music rooted in pre-nationalist and pre-fascist culture. For some this blend doesn’t work, for others it is a recipe for dance floor fillers. You can decide for yourself when Shantel and the Bucovina Club Orkestar play live, followed by Shantel’s DJ set at Koko in London on 20 February.

Photo by Harald H. Schroeder