ZAZOU BIKAYE “Nostalgie”
Here is the first track from the upcoming reissue of their ”Mr Manager" album (1985)With its 'Kraftwerk in Africa' overtones, “Nostalgie” heralds the release of Zazou Bikaye’s “Mr Manager”, a collection of tracks dating from 1985, which will include many previously-unreleased tracks. Stemming from the encounter between Congolese vocalist/composer Bony Bikaye, French musician/producer Hector Zazou and modular synth wizards CY1, Zazou Bikaye made history with their debut, cult album “Noir et Blanc” (1983), a groundbreaking Afro-electronic experiment which has been adulated to this day by generations of music fans and musicians. With “Mr Manager”, their music became less overtly experimental and took on original shades of digital Afrobeat/Afrofunk. “Mr Manager” was a 5-track mini-album. Coming out on Oct 16, the expanded and remastered edition will comprise no less than 14 tracks, to which “Nostalgie” serves as a great introduction.
NIHILOXICA SHARE VIDEO FOR NEW SINGLE "BLACK KAVEERA"
Ahead of their debut album, "Kaloli"(out June 12th), Kampala’s afro-electro outfit present the latest blistering music videoThe music video for Black Kaveera is like an optical fever dream. A dizzying collage of incidental tour footage smashed together by drummer Spooky-J harnesses the band’s brutal live energy.
In typical lockdown fashion, Spooky looks to the past for inspiration for this piece. Elaborating the sentiments of their DIY, strobe-filled video for Kadodi, he condenses a range of footage captured by the band in their few years on the road across Europe and Uganda into a hallucinatory five minute evocation of the band’s entrancing multi-cultural energy. But Black Kaveera is much more than a just a pummelling groove: Black Kaveera is an ode to the Ugandan way, a wordless story of use and refuse.
An immediacy is apparent in its structure, an urgent call to act, to move. Nihiloxica put two traditions in conversation, and the topic of discussion is getting heated.
STUBBLEMAN "Great River Road" (Miss Kittin Remix)
Here’s the fourth release in a series of reinterpretations of tracks from the acclaimed electronic ambient album “Mountains and Plains” by Stubbleman (aka renowned producer Pascal Gabriel).Legendary French electroclash DJ/producer Miss Kittin has created an instant classic: a punchy club track which retains the evocative atmosphere of the original, overlaid with her iconic vocals.
This rework of Great River Road, exploring the path of the Mississippi as it meanders south from state to state, was made in January 2020 and somehow signals a poignant foreboding of the dark times to come.
More Stubbleman remixes by remarkable collaborators coming up soon, expect more surprises..
AKSAK MABOUL ANNOUNCE THEIR NEW ALBUM WITH A HYPNOTIC VIDEO AND SINGLE
"Tout a une fin / Blaue Bleistift”"Tout a une fin / Blaue Bleistift” - the 2-track single heralds the release of Aksak Maboul's new double LP 'Figures' (out May 15, 2020), which will be the legendary experimental pop band’s first real new album in decades.
These two tracks are reworks, which won’t appear as such on the album.
Tout a une fin (short version) (‘Everything ends’)
A tight 3-minute track including a song part (in which Véronique Vincent’s voice performs sinuous variations around the words in the title) and a section featuring electronic, rock and orchestral instrumentation rising to a wild, crescendo finale.
Blaue Bleistift
Unveiling some of the more electronic and experimental aspects of the new LP, with its criss-crossing keyboard lines and sound collages. Kind of a mysterious, ambient cousin of Aksak Maboul’s Saure Gurke?
Tout a une fin is also out in the shape of a dizzying music video directed by young animator/collagist Yoann Stehr (whose recent work includes short films for fashion designer Paul Smith).
Just like the Figures album, this single was written and produced by Marc Hollander & Véronique Vincent (respectively founder of Aksak Maboul & Crammed Discs, and former vocalist with The Honeymoon Killers).
NIHILOXICA JOIN CRAMMED DISCS’ ROSTER
Nihiloxica is a project that harnesses the full force of the ancient Bugandan drumming tradition of Uganda and focuses it on the contemporary dance floor through a dark lens of techno sensibility.
Formed by UK musicians Spooky-J & pq and members of the Nilotika Cultural Ensemble, incubated in Kampala by acclaimed label Nyege Nyege Tapes, the cross-continental band explore the common ground between techno and tradition, a conversation between two cultures with a common aim: to make people dance. Already tearing apart dance floors and festivals across the world with an at once transcendental and earth-shattering live show, Nihiloxica are only just getting started.
Nihiloxica’s debut album untitled ”Kaloli” is scheduled for release on April 24, 2020 on Crammed Discs.
ZENOBIA زنوبيا reveal their first music video...
...entitled "KSR, KSR, KSR"
TESTIFY
A NEW MESSAGE FROM EKITI SOUNDShot round the corner from the New Afrika Shrine in Lagos, the third visual from Abeg No Vex is directed by Leke Awoyinka aka Ekiti Sound and captures the continuing narrative of a juxtaposed existence. Having already explored this theme musically and with Miss Dynamite, Ekiti Sound rams the message home even more with Testify. A track that details the struggle of just trying to chase your dreams and the obstacles/people who get in the way.
ACID ARAB’s much-awaited 2nd album out now
Watch their new video, “Malek Ya Zahri”Jdid (meaning new in Arabic) sees the band taking a giant step forward on their path, and deepening the dialogue between the northern, southern and eastern shores of the Mediterranean (the northern shore extending, in this particular case, to the banks of the rivers Seine, Thames, Spree and Hudson!)
Throughout the album, club-oriented beats are taken for a ride, from suburban warehouses to smoky basements of Oran & Istanbul, from wide expanses of desert dunes to landscapes of concrete and metal, and are regenerated by the fresh breezes and the inspiring musicians encountered along the way.
In the second video off the album, Malek Ya Zahri (“My Luck Is Gone”), Acid Arab are taking us again to Algeria with a personal take on ’80s raï music. Carried by the powerful and wistful voice of Cheikha Hadjla, the song is about loss: of happiness and of loved ones, along the shores of the Mediterranean.
ACID ARAB ANNOUNCE NEW ALBUM RELEASE IN OCTOBER
Watch ”Club DZ”, where Algiers meets ChicagoOriginally formed by DJs Guido Minisky and Hervé Carvalho, Acid Arab became a fully-fledged musical entity by teaming up with Pierrot Casanova, Nicolas Borne, and with sensational Algerian keyboard player Kenzi Bourras. Since the release of their debut album Musique de France in 2016, the band have been setting fire to clubs and festivals worldwide, performing over 260 shows in close to 50 countries on four continents.
The new album is entitled Jdid (meaning new in Arabic), and is set for release in October 2019.
Unsung No Wave heroes' new video & vinyl reissue
Watch “Strainer”, a video edited from footage shot by the band in NY's Lower East Side around ’79-80Back in 1981, as the Crammed label was still in its early infancy, one of the first bands to join our roster was French/American duet Band Apart, who appeared out of nowhere, dropped an incredible EP, and made a mark in the bubbling No Wave scene in New York & Europe during a meteoric course which lasted around two years.
They consisted of poet Jayne Bliss and musician/producer (and Hector Zazou associate) M.Mader, and remain among the era’s unsung heroes.
We’re reissuing the EP coupled with 5 album tracks on vinyl, as well as their complete works on digital
Preorder: https://band-apart.bandcamp.com/album/band-apart
