Babylon Berlin is a screen adaptation of Volker Kutscher's detective novels. Set primarily in Berlin in 1929, they depict the aftershock of defeat, the rise of nationalism, the clashing of ultra-left and ultra-right parties, deceit and depravity, vice and venality. It makes for gripping viewing. Johnny Klimer and Tom Tykwer's music rises to the occasion, bottling the spirit of the Jazz Age and entartete musik (‘decadent music’). Over two CDs, the soundtrack combines Kabarett, swing and dance band jazz, blues (courtesy of Guitar Crusher), Brecht/Weill and electronica. Babylon Berlin emulates and echoes without being faithful to the period, while its arrangements are remarkable in their fastidious detail and deftness. Two episodes into Series One there is a song and dance blockbuster. The Lithuanian actress Severija performs the elegantly wasted ‘Zu Asche, Zu Staub’ (‘To Ashes, To Dust’) in an exotically unidentifiable ‘foreigner's German' – with a revelatory Nick Fatool-style drum break. Instrumental variations on ‘Zu Asche…’ surface elsewhere. Its slight return as ‘Boesser (sic) Zwilling’ (‘Bad Twin’) gets a buzzy echo of the ‘James Bond Theme’ on sax descending into feral dancehall wail. Severija's second showcase finds her reinventing herself in a French cabaret setting delivering ‘Vaskresenje’, sung this time with ‘foreigner's Russian' inflections. Her take on ‘Gloomy Sunday’ is a ‘Billie Holiday, eat your heart out’ deal. Brian Ferry… It was inspired to cast his louche-ness back in time to Weimar Republic-era decadence as featured vocalist on his own ‘Reason Or Rhyme’. Better is Roxy Music's ‘Dance Away’, made a fast foxtrot with a meaty Oscar Alemán cum Charlie Christian guitar break. Babylon Berlin grants the Brian Ferry Orchestra's poor-faring The Jazz Age (2012) an applied world of context. As if straight outta my bandsman father's swing and jazz record collection, Babylon Berlin is the wittiest jazz-orientated OST in ages – and it's a construct, a Jazz Age confabulation of the imagination!!