Artist Details: CRAMMED DISCS

Crammed’s legendary Composers’ Series is reactivated in 2021, with the release of new albums, and remastered vinyl reissues of several classics.

Inaugurated in 1984, Crammed's MADE TO MEASURE composers’ series set out to chart a map of some of the most interesting instrumental music of the era. Thirty-five albums came out during the series’ first decade, harbouring a great variety of inventive musical adventures which often weaved aspects of neoclassical/chamber music, ambient, electronica, minimalism, experimental avant-rock, soundscape creation & more.

Artists featured in the series initial run included Hector Zazou, John Lurie (with his soundtracks for Jim Jarmusch's "Stranger Than Paradise" and "Down By Law"), Fred Frith, Arto Lindsay, Zelwer, Steven Brown, Peter Principle, David Cunningham, Benjamin Lew, Daniel Schell, Aksak Maboul, Minimal Compact and more.

The series was half-jokingly christened “Made To Measure” in order to give a semblance of rationale to what was bound — as with all of Crammed’s curiosity and adventurousness-driven ventures— to become a diverse collection. The loose idea was: this is music which has or could have been made to measure as a soundtrack for other art forms (film, theatre, dance, video).

Although only a moderate portion of the series’ releases consisted of music actually recorded as soundtracks (most notably, John Lurie’s original music for Jim Jarmusch’s two breakthrough movies), the intersections with other artistic domains turned out to be numerous: Made To Measure’s contributing musicians collaborated with renowned filmmakers (Wim Wenders, Bernardo Bertolucci, Tom Tykwer, Jarmusch) choreographers (Maurice Béjart, Karole Armitage, Régine Chopinot, Philippe Découflé), fashion designers (Yohji Yamamoto, Rei Kawakubo/Comme des Garçons) and more.

Using a quote from painter Georges Braque as our motto (A lemon beside an orange is no longer a lemon, the orange no longer an orange; they have become fruit. Mathematicians follow this law. So do we), as well as a unified visual presentation, and the quasi-systematical use of pre-existing works of art as cover illustrations, we seemed to have succeeded in creating and running a series which became emblematic, was followed by music connoisseurs worldwide, and enjoys significant cult status to this day.

During the following couple of decades, our attention was drawn to many other musical areas, Made To Measure was left aside and became a sort of sleeping treasure, so to speak. Time and again, successive generations of fans and artists drew inspiration from the series.

Following an ephemeral rebirth in 2006 for the release of Tuxedomoon's "Bardo Hotel Soundtrack", Made To Measure was gradually revived since the mid-2010s, with new albums by Brown Reininger Bodson, Jozef Van Wissem, Bérangère Maximin, the soundtrack to the 'Blue Velvet Revisited' documentary by Tuxedomoon & Cult With No Name, Le Ton Mité and Stubbleman.

2021 is here and, as Crammed celebrates its 40th anniversary, we’re now set on staging a proper Made To Measure revival! The series will host several new releases, and we’ll be rolling out selected remastered vinyl reissues of some of the series’ classic early releases.

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Here's the complete Made To Measure catalogue:

AKSAK MABOUL/MINIMAL COMPACT/TUXEDOMOON/BENJAMIN LEW
Made To Measure Vol.1
MTM 1

HECTOR ZAZOU
Reivax au Bongo
MTM 2

BLAINE REININGER / MIKEL ROUSE
Colorado Suite / A Walk In The Woods
MTM 3+6

PETER PRINCIPLE
Sedimental Journey
MTM 4

HECTOR ZAZOU
Geographies
MTM 5

MIKEL ROUSE
A Walk In The Woods
MTM 6 (re-released with vol.3)

JOHN LURIE
Stranger Than Paradise
MTM 7 (deleted)

SUSSAN DEYHIM & RICHARD HOROWITZ
Desert Equations
MTM 8

MINIMAL COMPACT
Lowlands Flight
MTM 10

AKSAK MABOUL
Music for Yohji Yamamoto
MTM 11 (unreleased)

YASUAKI SHIMIZU
Music For Commercials
MTM 12

DANIEL SCHELL
If Windows They Have
MTM 13

JOHN LURIE
Down By Law
MTM 14 (deleted)

BENJAMIN LEW / STEVEN BROWN
Douzieme Journée: le Verbe, la Parure, l'Amour
MTM 15

BENJAMIN LEW / STEVEN BROWN
A Propos d'un Paysage
MTM 16

BENJAMIN LEW
Nebka
MTM 17

PETER PRINCIPLE
Tone Poems
MTM 18

BENJAMIN LEW / SAMY BIRNBACH
When God Was Famous
MTM 19

HECTOR ZAZOU
Geologies
MTM 20

FRED FRITH
The Top Of His Head
MTM 21

STEVEN BROWN/DELPHINE SEYRIG
De Doute et de Grâce
MTM22

ARTO LINDSAY & PETER SCHERER
Pretty Ugly
MTM 23

ZELWER
La Fiancée aux yeux de bois
MTM 24

GABOR KRISTOF
Le Cri du lézard
MTM 25

STEVE SHEHAN
Arrows
MTM 26

DANIEL SCHELL
Le Secret de Bwlch
MTM 27

KARL BISCUIT
Aktualismus
MTM 28

SEIGEN ONO
Nekonotopia Nekonomania
MTM 29

RAMUNTCHO MATTA
Domino One
MTM 30

DAVID CUNNINGHAM
Water
MTM 31 (deleted)

HECTOR ZAZOU feat. John Cale, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Gérard Depardieu, David Sylvian, Bill Laswell, Khaled etc
Sahara Blue
MTM 32

BRION GYSIN
Self-portrait Jumping
MTM 33

JOHN LURIE NATIONAL ORCHESTRA
Men With Sticks (deleted)
MTM 34