As Gypsy music started conquering an increasingly wider public, and a great many young people discovered the freshness, authenticity and sheer excitement of the Balkan sound,  Crammed asked an array of interesting rock & electronic music producers from the UK, Brazil, France, Turkey, the US, Yugoslavia, Chile, Germany and Belgium to create their own reinterpretation of tracks by Crammed's leading Balkan Gypsy bands such as Taraf de Haïdouks, Koçani Orkestar & newcomers Mahala Rai Banda.


The Producers

After having released several albums of electronic music, German producer Shantel rediscovered his family roots in Moldavia and developed a passion for Romanian music. He started the now-legendary Bucovina Club nights at the Frankfurt theatre, on which thousands of techno kids have been going crazy to the sound of Balkan Gypsy music.

Lightning Head is the electro-latino-reggae project masterminded by Bigga Bush, who used to be part of English dub pioneer outfit Rockers Hi-Fi. His two Koçani Orkestar remixes take the Balkans on a journey to Central Africa and Jamaica.

DJ Dolores is one of the leaders of this new Brazilian generation of producers who blend electronic music with folk roots from the Nordeste. He was the perfect man for trying to bridge the gap between Pernambuco and Romania.

Likewise, who else but Chilean-based Señor Coconut (famous for his ironic electro-latino renderings of pop classics) could underline the strange similarities between Latin American and Southern Balkans brass bands ?

Also known as Ian Simmonds, Juryman is one of the most original electro-jazz artists around (he has three brilliant albums out on Crammed subsidiary SSR), and he sounds like he's taken the Taraf to a smoky basement jazz club.

Originally a multi-instrumentalist, Brussels-based DJ/producer Gaetano Fabri has been running the Decadance club nights as well as his Sphere label and thrives on a mixture of jazz, funk and bossa.

Acclaimed French duo Bumcello consist of cellist Vincent Segal and drummer Cyril Atef, two musicians who have collaborated with everyone from Susheela Raman to Keziah Jones to Aswad to DJ Mehdi, before forming this unusual band which inventively mixes rock & world music, electronic & acoustic instruments.

Modern Quartet are Leche and Vanjus, two producers from Novi Sad (Yugoslavia). The latter was a childhood friend and early musical partner of emblematic, Serbian-born Brazilian producer Suba. They're geographically as close as can be to Balkan music, yet their inspiration strangely seems to wander much further East.

Revered for his personal take on modern Brazilian music (five solo albums, production work for Caetano Veloso and Marisa Monte etc.), Arto Lindsay seldom works as a remixer. Produced with his sometime-collaborator bassist Melvin Gibbs (of Defunkt, Rollins band and Sonny Sharrock Band fame), his contribution to Electric Gypsyland is therefore suprising on more than one count, as it is strangely reminiscent of New York's early 80s minimal/rock/noise scene (of which Arto's band DNA was an integral part).

Turkish producer-cum-DJ Mercan Dede has recorded two remarkable electro-world, East-meets-West albums for Istambul label Doublemoon. Just like several other producers on Electric Gypsyland, he's done far more than just remixing or programming : he's added a number of additional musicians which interact with the original players and bring new twists to the songs.

Franco-German producer Olaf Hund has been releasing quirky and original records on his Musiques Hybrides label. He's closing this album with a piece which draws elements from half a dozen of the other source tracks, therefore creating a joyful, virtual jam session in which the members of three different bands are unwittingly involved.