A fine selection of the relentlessly morphing output from Crammed's ever-evolving roster of artists, all neatly sequenced to create an exciting listening experience.

This is actually It's A Crammed, Crammed World 3 (the title was used for two now-deleted early compilations, in 1984 and 1987). It contains several original edits, and versions which were only previously available on promo-only singles.

 
01. Lonely Drifter Karen   
La Chouette (The Owl)
After their unanimously adored 2008 debut album, the enchanting Austro-Catalan-Italian trio will be returning with a fantastic series of songs and a fuller, deeper sound. "A delicious concoction taking in Weimar Republic cabaret, Parisian café music, Mittel-European classical traditions, rustic Italian ballads, gipsy folk…" (The Daily Telegraph). "With her sweet and clear voice, Tanja Frinta could be Tom Waits' imaginary daughter" (Les Inrockuptibles)

This track is an entirely rearranged and re-recorded version of "The Owl Moans Low", which came out as a single in May 09

Produced by Marc Melià Sobrevias & Tanja Frinta
Written by Tanja Frinta
Published by Les Editions de la Bascule/Strictly Confidential
Original version taken from the album "Grass Is Singing"
(p) 2009 Crammed Discs


02. Mocky               
Birds Of A Feather (radio edit)
A new future/retro classic, the Saskamodie album is the first release for Crammed Discs from the man well-known for his work with Feist, Jamie Lidell and Gonzales is! At different points you'll hear a vintage soundtrack suite, a debonair jazz record (minus the solos) or a golden era '60s soul ballad recording... but sweet, inescapably infectious melody is the lifeblood trickling through Saskamodie's core.

Produced by Mocky and Renaud Letang
Written by D.Salole
Published by Heavy Sheet Music/Warner Chappell
From the album "Saskamodie"
(p) 2009 Crammed Discs


03. Shantel              
Bucovina Original
Shantel and his mighty Bucovina Club Orkestar are back, batteries fully recharged and ready to tell the world about a new and exciting discovery in the solar system of pop: PLANET PAPRIKA! With this, his second album, Shantel's vision of a totally borderless European pop music is complete, and resistance is futile...

Produced by Shantel
Written by F.W.Hendricks/Shantel
Published by Universal Music
From the album "Planet Paprika"
(p) 2009 Crammed Discs/Essay Recordings


04. Staff Benda Bilili       
Moziki
Congolese rumba-funk warriors Staff Benda Bilili's mesmerising, vibrant music and their extraordinary story have been making a strong impression worldwide. In what has become one of the most talked-about tours of 2009, they've been ripping through Europe through the Fall with a string of scintillating live shows. The continent's media has responded in a chorus of praise, with top TV networks, broadsheet newspapers and world-renowned radios lavishing the band with attention. Staff Benda Bilili have received the 2009 WOMEX Artist Award.

Produced by Vincent Kenis
Written by Waroma Abi-Ngoma
Published by Les Editions de la Bascule/Strictly Confidential/Belle Kinoise
From the album "Très Très Fort!"
(p) 2009 Crammed Discs

05. Akron/Family           
River
After building up a great, word-of-mouth reputation during the last four years, and gathering an ever-growing legion of obsessive fans, Akron/Family now bring their kaleidoscopic brand of global psychedelic folk rock music to the next level with Set 'em Wild..., their first album released on Crammed Discs (in Europe only). "Captures the riotous, magic bustle of their lives shows"  (Mojo). "A work of genius… positions them amongs the very best current US bands" (Magic, France). "Where antique folk balladry, primal drone and exposive improvisation meet and melt..." (Rolling Stone)

Produced & written by Akron/Family
Published by Akron-fi/Les Editions de la Bascule/Strictly Confidential
From the album "Set 'Em Wild, Set 'Em Free"
(p) 2009 Dead Oceans/Crammed Discs

06. Chicha Libre           
Tres Pasajeros   
Inspired by the Peruvian music craze from the 70s, this Brooklyn-based band are here to intoxicate you with their potent mixture of latin rhythms, surf music and psychedelic pop... melding elegant homage with playful humour and a sublime twist of the new! Contains original tunes alongside reinterpretations of Chicha classics, covers of 70s pop songs, pieces by Satie and Ravel – all done Chicha-style, with a sound which wouldn't seem out of place in the soundtrack of a Tarantino movie.

Produced by Olivier Conan   
Written by Joshua Camp
Published by Calle Nueve/ Les Editions de la Bascule/Strictly Confidential
(p) 2009 Barbes Records / Crammed Discs 


07. Flat Earth Society        
Mutt
The finest, wildest, most colourful and least traditional jazz big band in this or any stratosphere are back with their second album for Crammed Discs. Car chase funk meets screwball jazz, early Miles Davis moments meet Bernard Hermann... who needs sense when you have Flat Earth Society?

Produced by Flat Earth Society
Written by Peter Vermeersch
Published by Les Editions de la Bascule/Strictly Confidential
(p) 2009 Crammed Discs

08. Zeep                
Desert
From Nina Miranda and Chris Franck (who brought you Smoke City and Da Lata)... a fresh, immediate pop album that takes in space-age downtempo, tripped-out bossa, spaghetti western disco, as well as a daring Brazilian folk rewiring of the Specials' classic Ghost Town.
"There's an irresistible playfulness to everything here" (Uncut)

Produced by Chris Franck
Written by Nina Miranda/Chris Franck/Davide Giovannini
Published by Les Editions de la Bascule/Strictly Confidential
From the album "People and Things"
(p) 2009 Crammed Discs


09. Balkan Beat Box       
Mexico City
They've been wowing festival and club audiences around the world for the last couple of years with their wild, powerful show, and will soon be back with "Blue Eyed Black Boy", their strongest album so far, broadening their musical scope to include more Arabic, Latin and reggae flavours, and including a high ratio of melodic, catchy and thought-provoking songs.

Produced by Balkan Beat Box
Written by Tamir Muskat/Ori Kaplan/Tomer Yosef
Published by Les Editions de la Bascule/Strictly Confidential
From the album "Nu Med"
(p) 2007 Crammed Discs


10. U-cef               
Stick (feat. Damon Albarn)
First there was Hollywood… then Bollywood… and now… Halalwood, Morocco's first and foremost digitalizer's debut album for Crammed, a tour-de-force which puts gnawa music, dub, sinuous classic Arabic arrangements, electronic beats, MCs, big drums and crunchy rock guitars into a giant blender. Featuring Damon Albarn, Natacha Atlas, Rachid Taha, Steve Hillage/Miquette Giraudy, UK Apache, Amina Annabi, Justin Adams and Moroccan rap duo Dar Gnawa.

Produced by U-cef
Written by Moulay Youssef Adel
Published by Les Editions de la Bascule/Strictly Confidential
From the album "Halalwood"
(p) 2008 Crammed Discs

11. Allá                  
Un Pedazo
Chicago-based Mexican-American sound voyagers Allá have released a sumptuous debut album (Es Tiempo) which saw shades of Tropicalia, Motown, jazz, lounge and more mixed up to form a lush, dreamy pop palette. Uncut called them "The Chicano Portishead" while Spin wrote that they "sound like the Cocteau Twins at a cocktail lounge on an Acapulco cruise ship... hints of Stereolab and Tortoise... sumptuous, exotic vibe". Allá also released "Digs", a mini-album in which they pay tribute to artists which have inspired them by performing raw, psychedelic covers of tracks by Faust, The Residents, John Cale/Terry Riley and... Kanye West!

Written & produced by Jorge Ledezma
Published by Les Editions de la Bascule/Strictly Confidential
From the album "Es Tiempo"
(p) 2008 Crammed Discs

12. Koçani Orkestar         
Papigo
The latest album by the funkiest of all Balkan brass bands (and darlings of the indie rock scene ever since Beirut's Zach Condon repeatedly sang their praise and covered some of their songs)… A powerful, romantic, inventive opus, full of epic love songs, and sometimes tilting towards oriental surf music or some kind of mutant Eastern rock, with the help of guest guitarists Uri Kinrot (Balkan Beat Box) and Vincent Kenis.

Produced by Stéphane Karo & Vincent Kenis
Written by Vasilis Saleas (copyright control)
Arranged by Koçani Orkestar
From the album "The Ravished Bride"
(p) 2008 Crammed Discs


13. Hector Zazou & Swara     
Attainable Border: East
The ever-innovative Hector Zazou invited four outstanding instrumentalists from India and Uzbekistan to step into a virtual hall of mirrors. A fresh take on classical Asian music, which nods to some of the music produced in the '70s by Terry Riley and Fripp & Eno. Feat. Toir Kuziyev (tambur & oud), Milind Raykar (violin), Ronu Majumdar (flute) and Manish Pingle (Indian slide guitar), as well as guests such as Diego Amador and Nils Petter Molvaer. Hector Zazou sadly passed away in September 2008, prior to the release of this album.

Featuring Toir Kuziyev & Milind Raikar
Produced & written by Hector Zazou
Published by Les Editions de la Bascule/Strictly Confidential
From the album "In The House Of Mirrors"
(p) 2008 Crammed Discs

14. Megafaun               
Kaufman's Ballad
Appalachian banjo figures, tumbling Steve Reich pianos, sumptuous multi-part harmonies and adventurous sound processing… a beautiful thirteen-track suite of modern American folk music from the North Carolina trio. While very much at ease with various strains of American folk music, Megafaun are masterfully reinventing tradition by infusing it with radically alien elements: "Megafaun don't just catalog American musical languages, they breed them", says Pitchfork. "Bon Iver's former bandmates's first UK release – and they're brilliant too!" (Mojo)

Produced by Megafaun
Written by Megafaun & Perry Owen Wright
Published by Les Editions de la Bascule/Strictly Confidential
From the album "Gather, Form & Fly"
(p) 2009 Hometapes/ Crammed Discs


15. Cibelle           
White Hair (No Kids Remix)
Our ever-imaginative favourite London-based Brazilian artist reinvents herself as the resident singer in a postnuclear tropical rundown punk cabaret for the wonderful new album she produced in São Paulo, London and Vancouver with Damian Taylor (Björk) and mixed with Thom Monahan (Au Revoir Simone, Devendra Banhart), scheduled for release in the Spring of 2010 and entitled "Las Vênus Resort Palace Hotel".

White Hair came out as a single in Sept 2008.

Written & produced by Cibelle
Remix & additional production by No Kids/Nick Krgovich
Published by Les Editions de la Bascule/Strictly Confidential
(p) 2008 Crammed Discs


16. Kasai Allstars         
Kafuulu Balu
The acclaimed, spectacular Congotronics band has been described as a "retro-futurist primeval rock combo" and, just like Konono N°1, has been massively adopted by the international electronica, world music and alternative rock scenes. Using a spectacular mixture of traditional acoustic instruments, electric guitars, distortion-laden thumb pianos and soulful vocals, Kasai Allstars is a collective revolving around 25 musicians all based in Kinshasa, DR Congo.

This track is an excerpt from their 2008 album, which appeared in many "best-albums-of-2008" lists.

Produced by Vincent Kenis
Written by Hubert Mputu Ebondo
Arranged by Kasai Allstars
Published by Les Editions de la Bascule/Strictly Confidential
From the album "In The 7th Moon, The Chief Turned Into
A Swimming Fish And Ate The Head Of His Enemy By Magic"
(p) 2008 Crammed Discs

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Album compiled by Marc Hollander
Artwork by McCloud Zicmuse
Art direction Hanna Gorjaczkowska
Mastered by Pierre Vervloesem