From Bregović to Shantel - a Balkan Music Canon Worth Knowing

Everyone who has danced to Balkan brass at least once eventually asks: where do I start listening? Here is a subjective canon - the artists and phenomena that shaped how Balkan and Gypsy folk sounds on European stages today.

Goran Bregović - the gateway to the Balkans

For most listeners the adventure starts with Bregović: film soundtracks and grand orchestral shows carried the Balkan sound onto the world’s main stages. It is music that is epic and danceable at the same time - the perfect starting point.

Taraf de Haïdouks - the source

The Romanian lăutari from Clejani are the essence of the tradition: dizzying tempos, virtuoso fiddle and cimbalom, playing passed from generation to generation. If you want to hear where it all came from - start here.

Shantel and the Balkan club

The Frankfurt producer showed that Balkan brass and club electronics are a natural pairing - his Disko Partizani became the anthem of the whole scene. It is thanks to this current that Balkan folk reached festivals and clubs far beyond the Balkans.

What Propabanda plays from all this

Our path crossed this canon quite literally: in 2012 Propabanda appeared twice on the Balkan&Jewish Inspirations compilation alongside Shantel, Taraf de Haïdouks and Goran Bregović. From that cauldron we pick the tastiest morsels - from Kalashnikov to Disko Boy - and play them our own way. Listen in the music and video section, and read more about our influences in this piece.