After pioneering the concept of Balkan clubbing with his now-legendary Bucovina Club parties and albums, after working his DJ voodoo around the world (and driving crowds to ecstatic bliss), after setting very high standards for dancefloor-oriented Gypsy music with his own seminal tracks and with his remixes of tracks by Mahala Rai Banda, Taraf de Haidouks & more…

Shantel has now moved on to the next step with the fab Disko Partizani! album, which lays the groundwork for a new brand of pop music. This is the sound of new Europe, centered in the middle of our old continent, but incorporating vibrant influences from the emerging new frontier which stretches all the way to Mitteleuropa, the South East, Greece, Turkey and beyond… Disko Partizani! sees Shantel successfully synthesizing his experiences as a producer, musician and DJ to create catchy, energetic and festive pop songs, full of hooks and surprises.

The album features great performances by a host of musicians from southeast Europe and by Shantel himself, who also appears on lead vocals, gracing several tracks with an unexpected, elegant deadpan delivery. Essay Recordings (Shantel’s label) and Crammed have joined forces for this very special album, which will come out in early September 2007.

Shantel will be extensively touring with the Disko Partizani project, accompanied by his Bucovina Club Orkestar, a full 8-piece band. Shantel, who started out as a respected electronica producer (with two albums out on Studio K7), has taken to the music of Eastern Europe following a trip to Bucovina, in search of his family roots.

His Bucovina Club albums have earned him several awards (including a BBC World Music Award). Stop press: Shantel has written the original music for “The Edge Of Heaven”, the new Fatih Akin movie which just won an award at the Cannes Film Festival.

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Ridha was born and grew up in Hamburg, Germany. Between the ages of six and fourteen, he practiced piano and drums. At the latter age, he began to purchase records and produced music with programs. At sixteen, he started to produce in a studio with a colleague who would later be known as D.I.M. He taught Ridha engineering over the next five years. When he became 21 years of age, Ridha moved to Berlin. Under the name Boys Noize, he has released records on French label Kitsuné Music, Tiga’s Turbo Records label, and on DJ Hell’s International DeeJay Gigolo Records. He has also remixed tracks for Tiga, Para One, Feist, Kreeps and Depeche Mode, as well as popular remixes of British indie anthems “Banquet” by Bloc Party and “Everyday I Love You Less and Less” by Kaiser Chiefs. Boys Noize’s tracks and remixes are played by DJs such as Erol Alkan, SebastiAn, 2 Many DJ’s, Meaty Pan, Tiga and Justice. Alex Ridha has also released EPs under the names 909d1sco and Kid Alex. Boys Noize released his debut album “Oi Oi Oi” in September 2007. The first single from the album is titled “Don’t Believe The Hype”, and features two remixes by Surkin. Boys Noize’s track entitled “& Down” has also been featured in the video game Grand Theft Auto IV on the Electro-choc and PLR radio station, and was also used as a sample for Estelle’s single American Boy.