Founder of the legendary Bucovina Club in Frankfurt, composer for the Turkish director Fatih Akin (among others) and multi-instrumental DJ hailed for his celebration of a marriage of passion between clubbing culture and the most exhilarating Balkanic music for over ten years, Shantel is a phenomenon.
The dance floor maestro juggles with the communicative exaltation of Romania, Turkey, Greece, Macedonia or Bulgaria’s folk music and places it under digital beats’ fire power. His blazing mixes reveal one by one the pieces of an electro-pan-European puzzle and sets the dance floor on fire.

Recognised as virtuoso Oud player and talented singer, Lebanese Charbel Rouhanna has been, for the past 20 years, the most acclaimed oud artist of his generation, having devised a training method now taught at the Conservatoire National de Musique or collaborated with the inspiring Marcel Khalifé.
Missing link between the celebrated Arabic classical repertoire and western influences this erudite artist has managed to preserve a culture heritage while promoting improvisation, fundamental characteristic of oriental music. This greatly respected master’s inspired playing reveals itself year after year as a boundless source of inspiration for the development of a modern oriental repertoire..

When Justin Adams, renown, nomadic English guitarist (who has played alongside Robert Plant or Natacha Atlas!) meets Juldeh Camara, African griot, king of the riti violin and the Kologo lute, the afro-blues spark shines with renewed sparkle. Endorsed by Real World, this bridging project explores, at a frantic rhythm, hitherto unsuspected horizons. Gambian music brushes with wild rock and the Chicago blues gets a chance to revisit its remote relation to gnawa trances. A rejuvenating, groovy and electric experience for one of the most deeply rooted ancestral tradition of West Africa. A fruitful exchange, irresistibly dancy, far from the beaten tracks of artificial crossovers.

Deeply rooted in his Valencian land, Miquel Gil has been for the past 35 years amongst those adventurer poets constantly searching for new forms to express the Mediterranean song at its most precise. Mixing Catalan poetry, cante jundo, Greek Rebetiko, Gnawa songs and the irregular Turkish metrics, his deep seated voice exudes a folk-song without borders, traditional verses and contemporary texts trickling one by one in a poignant interpretation that earned him the title of ‘greatest Catalan Singer.’ A symbolic title for the bard who mixes the folk traditions that lap the Mediterranean shores.

Celebrated as the new star of Congolese music, at only 33 the young Fally Ipupa can already boast of an impressive career. Pillar and conductor for 7 years of the Quartier Latin International, the famous Koffi Olomidé’s band, his first solo album received numerous international awards, following record sales. He still sings his Congolese folk in Lingala but now, the one who is nicknamed Dicaprio the Marvel, has started a modernisation of Congolese Rumba and Ndombolo with contemporary music and an increasingly inventive melodic sense. The new hero’s stuff sets the thrilling Congolese nights on fire.

Official brass band of an imaginary country (a made up enclave in Eastern Belgium) la Fanfare du Belgistan drafts with mischief the outlines of its dreamed up territory: Blakanic frenzy, gypsy fervour, Afro-American leads and North-African rhythms, nomadic funk and unbridled jazz, Belgistan groove wears an unlikely label: «moezik afro-boelgare» and achieves to be both original and familiar; full of limitless creativity. Amidst this burning maelstrom, the band of oriental gypsy allegiance, carries a breathless audience to the farthest reaches of festive trance, an invitation to dance that cannot be refused. And the only visa required for a heady visit to Belgistan.

In the Portuguese musical panorama, Oquestrada brings a stimulating breath of fresh air with its evocative swing displaying flamboyant Portuguese sounds: Cap Verde’s funanà, Angolan Semba, references to Brazilian rhythms, are all gathered in a merry dance alongside bal-musette, ragga, acoustic ska in a joyful cosmopolitan mix. Gathered around the exuberant Marta Miranda, the small motley crew frolics around the stage in a sarabande to the sound of the accordion, trumpet, clarinet and Portuguese guitar bringing a mischievous smile back on the face of a usually more melancholic Fado. A musical ray of sunshine straight from Lisbon’s heights, swept by scintillating reflections of a golden sea.

Exceptional and seasoned musician, Aziz Sahmaoui who played at the Orchestre National de Barbès, or alongside the brilliant Joe Zawinul, has been building for the past thirty years elegant sonic bridges between jazz and Maghreb’s traditional music. Armed with his guembri, his guitar, percussions and the most singular tone of voice, this genius dabbler revisits, in particular Gnawa trances, with visionary flair. With his University of Gnawa he sets free this ancient genre from its folkloric cliché on many accounts. Illuminating it with his jazz fineries, his inclinations towards fusion and the occasional Senegalese escapades, Aziz Sahmaoui delivers a captivating epic at the heart of the Gnawa music of South Maghreb.

This mischievous brass trio brings new blood to the international nu-jazz production. Juggling with electronic loops, adventurous voices and cleverly assimilated oriental influences this band from Nice throws wide open the doors on unexplored territories. A tour de force stirring up beat-box rhythms, the digressions of a trombone, and a musical universe on the fringes of vocal jazz where the tranquillity of Indian temples and Egyptian pyramids, meets the excitement of Western capitals. With a world music on the outposts of modernity and a wide-open jazz, Sashird Lao produces a silky album scented with the essence of soul-world.