Matias Aguayo meets Maloya swing

Learn new dance moves with ”Pikin”!




"Pikin" is the first track off the new "Support Alien Invasion" album to be revealed, via this dance video! Recognising the similitude between the riddim of "Pikin" and the swing at the heart of Maloya music from the island of La Reunion, local dancers and cousins Aurélie and Nicolas Zemire showed Aguayo the perfect moves for his track. Together they developed a futurist Maloya dance routine which fuses traditional steps with typical Aguayo moves, and highlight the radical modernism of the utopian idea behind "Support Alien Invasion". The video was shot by Matias' cousin Stephane Carpinelli, in the surreal outskirts of the city of Barcelona.

Badlands Train

Take a road trip across the USA with Stubbleman’s album ”Mountains and Plains”




First video from the debut album by Stubbleman, the alter-ego of maverick composer and producer Pascal Gabriel. A contemporary take on the golden era of ambient (& leaning towards electronic/minimal classical), this panoramic album was written & partly recorded during a road trip across the US, elaborated in Pascal's studio at the foot of Mont Ventoux, and mixed in London with his old friend Gareth Jones.

'Miss Dynamite'

Ekiti Sound spearheads a new musical dialogue between London and Lagos. Watch his second video ”Miss Dynamite”

His debut album Abeg No Vex wires novel musical circuitry into shape, soldering UK soundsystem culture, hip-hop and Afrobeat into new, haywire connections, a diverse chorus of global voices routed through its new configurations. It’s a starkly original record, built up of layered musical histories, papered over one another into a messy, exhilarating collage of sounds.

Abeg No Vex (2xLP, digital, CD) is out on Crammed Discs on April 26th.

Crammed welcomes bedroom pop experimentalist Scott Gilmore

Watch the first video from his upcoming album




On March 1, 2019, we’ll be releasing a new album of seductive, dreamy music by Scott Gilmore, a mysterious young man who lives in the strange, suburban environment known as the San Fernando Valley, and produces seductive, beguiling, dreamy experimental pop music.

His previous album was hailed by media such as VICE and Pitchfork (who referenced Krautrock, Air and Stereolab in relation to Scott’s music).

The first single is the album’s title track, the video was directed by Scott himself.

EKITI SOUND

From Lagos With Love




IFE  means LOVE in Yoruba, one of the main languages of Nigeria.
This torrid taster announces the debut album by Lagos/London artist EKITI SOUND,
to be released on Crammed Discs in early 2019.

NEW VIDEO BY NOVA MATERIA

The powerful French-Chilean band is one of Crammed’s three new signings




This striking music video by French director Grégoire Pedron illustrates the first single off the upcoming debut album by experimental electro rock band NOVA MATERIA.

The video was premiered by Pop Matters, and the album is due for September.

Stream/download the single here

Crammed’s Radio Show

A great non-guide for getting lost in the jungle of the label's output…

Once a month, Crammed founder Marc Hollander hosts a 2-hour show on The Word Radio, and dives into the depths of the label’s catalogue, with tracks recorded during the label's four decades, including some rarities, new and upcoming music, interspersed with skits, demos and field recordings.

Entitled "Inside & Around Crammed Discs with Marc Hollander", the show also sometimes features guest DJs (Julien Gasc from Aquaserge was the first guest, on Episode 5 of the show).

These eclectic mixes should work as great introductions to the label’s music. They are available as podcasts on the radio’s website, and later on Crammed’s Soundcloud page.

You can also listen to (most of) the tracks separately in this Spotify playlist

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.

Rozzma's 'Donya Fakka' EP

Straight from Cairo, a futuristic debut on Acid Arab's new imprint




The first and foremost exponent of Cairo's futuristic rave bass music, Rozzma is a fictional character, his only existence is on stage, videos and space.  He's started manifesting himself around Europe, popping up here and there and wowing the crowds at festivals and clubs, expect to see much more of him in the near future. Meanwhile, here's his killer debut EP, out on Acid Arab Records, the new imprint launched by Acid Arab in collaboration with Crammed Discs.

Stream it/get it here: smarturl.it/donya_fakka