It’s from the latest film from Faith Akin (Head On), a man not afraid to make great films with greater soundtracks. He also has a penchant for Germans. First there was his Turkish travelogue of Einsturzende Neubauten’s Alexander Hacke in Crossing the Bridge, and now he’s entrusted much of this soundtrack to a German who seems to think he’s Balkan. Shantel, a former techno dude who in a creative crisis rediscovered his Balkan ancestry, has liberally sprinkled in a few of those stomping Balkan dance-floor fusions that made last years Disko Partizani such a compelling and rump shaking joy (see earlier review) . There are also a number of traditional tracks from Istanbul and the black sea, the rough haunting music from Kurdish poet and songwriter Ahmet Kaya, the Turkish folk of Laz speaking Birol Topaloglu, an album highlight with its incredible vocals and soaring choruses, and also the the Queen of Turkish pop Sezen Aksu’s Olursem Yazikitir which draws upon as many traditions as contemporary elements, Yet it’s very clearly Shantel’s show, his ability to combine traditional instrumentation (this time Turkish) from some of the worlds best musicians with his own electronic desires is possibly more restrained and tasteful than ever before.
It works exceedingly well. There is much less of the sleazy close mic’d vocals that characterised Disko Partizani and less of a desire to drag everything immediately to the dance-floor. What is left is a haunting highly accomplished soundtrack where, not unlike Turkey itself, east meets west on equal footing for a change, without the blatant tokenism or self conscious exoticism that is a little sickening and all too familiar.
Bob Baker Fish
