Crammed has released over 250 albums and 250 singles by artists from all over the world, ranging from Aksak Maboul to Bel Canto, Carl Craig, DJ Morpheus (& the Freezone series), Eddie Fowlkes, Flat Earth Society, The Gruesome Twosome, The Honeymoon Killers (let's skip some letters) ... to Snooze, Suba, Tek 9 & 4hero, Zap Mama, Hector Zazou and Zuco 103 ...
Crammed's sub-labels have included the Made To Measure composers' series, world music collection Cramworld, electronic music imprints SSR, Language & Selector, and Ziriguiboom, a collection devoted to new Brazilian music. Nowadays, Crammed would like to believe that borders between genres are no longer indispensable, so most releases tend to come out under the simple "Crammed" banner.
Crammed's current roster includes Konono N°1, Cibelle, Koçani Orkestar, Taraf de Haidouks, Bebel Gilberto, Balkan Beat Box, DJ Dolores, Tuxedomoon, Shantel, Kasai Allstars, Think Of One, Mahala Rai Banda, newcomers Lonely Drifter Karen & Allá, and more.
Aksak Maboul "Un peu de l'âme des bandits"
Deluxe vinyl reissue for the first-ever Crammed release
Originally released in January 1980, the second album from (Crammed founder) Marc Hollander's band has now been reissued in the shape of a package containing a vinyl LP remastered from original analogue tapes, a 25x25cm, 24-page booklet (with liner notes, documents, recollections by all the musicians, a complete history of the band etc), and a bonus album entitled Before and After Bandits (CD+download).
The bonus album includes 10 previously-unreleased live and demo recordings, featuring no less than seventeen of the band's successive members and guests (including Fred Frith, Chris Cutler, Vincent Kenis, Véronique Vincent, Geoff Leigh & more). Over the course of ten tracks and 78 minutes of music, this collection charts the sinuous evolution of the ever-morphing Aksak Maboul sound and reveals some of the missing links in the story, from the 1977 debut Onze danses pour combattre la migraine through the Bandits album, a little-documented avant-No Wave phase in 1980, the atypical, eclectic electropop of Ex-Futur Album, and until the band's current live incarnation, which started in 2015 after a hiatus of some 30 years.
Get the reissue HERE
Initial press reactions:
As if Pere Ubu got together with Faust to cover Igor Stravinsky (ByteFM, DE)
The Belgian experimental group Aksak Maboul were - and are - out there on their own… revelatory (The Quietus, UK)
Baroque deconstructivism… you don’t need to learn the nuance of its history to peel back the zeal of its musicians, who seemed all along to be saying, “Hey, serious music can be silly too.” (Pitchfork, US)
Jazz meets avant-classical, while brittle electronics spray delirious nonsense into the air… (Bonus album) Before & After Bandits traces an alternative, every bit as compelling history of Aksak Maboul (Uncut, UK)
Cheeky, mad and playful music, as fresh today as it was then still ahead of its time... a lesson in modernity… a compulsory buy (Les Inrocks, FR)
According to US writer Mikey IQ Jones (who penned the liner notes):
Aksak Maboul are a brilliant, covert unit that managed to absorb the operations and thoughtforms of many seemingly oppositional aesthetics, fusing them into a sound that few really managed to extend or even emulate.
Each of Aksak Maboul's three LPs stands as a sibling to the others, each with very distinct personalities and physical characteristics, yet sharing a very foundational chemical and aesthetic makeup – listening to their entire oeuvre, one recognizes melodies or polyrhythmic patterns from a song on one album subtly integrated into the body of one elsewhere.
The roots of Aksak Maboul's appeal and longevity lie within the collective's shapeshifting lineup and their chameleonic aesthetic abilities; the group's ever-mutating sound is akin to a sonic möbius strip, always digesting and recontextualizing itself, where seams and edges show but continually fold in upon themselves as the madness evolves. The best part? That evolution hasn't yet ceased.
