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
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.
