1. Staff Benda Bilili: utterly unique, soulful and tres, tres fort!
2. Exciting new signing: Mocky
3. Another exciting new signing: Chicha Libre
4. Bossacucanova: "Ao Vivo" CD+DVD
5. Kasai Allstars: end-of-year kudos
6. The Crammed Family welcomes the Akron/Family
1. Staff Benda Bilili: Utterly unique, soulful and tres, tres fort!
Staff Benda Bilili are like nothing you have ever seen or heard before. A group of paraplegic street musicians who live in and around the grounds of the zoo in Kinshasa, Congo, they make music of astonishing power and beauty.
Combine reggae, rumba, soul and funk with traditional African rhythms as accessibly and joyously as Bob Marley. Inspirational (Uncut)
Africa doesn't need our pity. Africa demands and deserves our admiration and wonder, our humility and respect. Staff Benda Bilili embody this truth with total dedication and style. (The Independent)
Selected as one of the 20 best new acts of 2009 by The Observer
Watch videos of Staff Benda Bilili live on the streets of Kinshasa HERE
We're extremely pleased and proud to announce that we're embarking on a long-term relationship with MOCKY, who will be releasing his new album worldwide on Crammed. His electro/hip hop/soul solo releases, his wildly entertaining live shows and his outstanding production & arrangement work for Feist, Jamie Lidell and Gonzales have turned Mocky into a cult figure. Now he moves boldly in a new direction: a genuine future/retro classic, the "Saskamodie" album sounds like a delightfully old-school pop jazz soundtrack. Produced by Renaud Letang and Mocky, the album features Mocky on vocals and on a dozen different instruments, as well as performances by Feist, Jamie Lidell, Gonzales & the Actuels String Quartet.
Watch out for Mocky concerts around Europe, as from April 2009.
Psychedelic Surf Cumbias from Brooklyn: inspired by the Amazonian music craze that shares its name with the liquor favored by the Incas and still very popular throughout Peru, this new Brooklyn-based band are here with their album "¡Sonido Amazonico!", ready to intoxicate you with their potent mixture of latin rhythms, surf guitars and psychedelic pop. All in all, a sound which wouldn't seem out of place in the soundtrack of a Tarantino movie. By combining covers of forgotten Chicha classics with French-tinged originals, re-interpretations of '70s pop classics and subtly executed cumbia takes on pieces by Satie and Ravel, Chicha Libre meld elegant homage with playful humour and a sublime twist of the new - pushing their music way beyond mere pastiche and into strange, sun-blanched epiphany.
Bossacucanova are the Brazilian band who first tackled the electronic/bossa fusion with their milestone debut album back in '98. They are celebrating the 50th anniversary of bossa nova with this new release, which documents an exciting night at Rio de Janeiro's famous Canecão concert hall, where they invited bossa legends and prominent young artists to join them onstage to revisit classic bossa songs. They also organised a series of acoustic sessions in the comfort of an apartment in Rio, which spawned lovely, relaxed performances and some interesting insights about the early days of bossa nova.
Here's a selection of some of the publications which gave ""In the 7th moon, the chief turned into a swimming fish and ate the head of his enemy by magic" by Kasai Allstars some end-of-year love:
all-genre lists:
33th Album of the Year in Mojo (UK)
16th Best-reviewed Album of the Year on Metacritic (US)
47th Album of the Year in The Observer/The Guardian (UK)
15th Album of the year in The Wire (UK)
35th Song of the Year on Said The Gramophone (US)
4th Album of the Year in the A.V. Club (US)
1st Most Incomprehensible Album Title of the Year in Paste (US)
by genre lists:
1st African Album of the Year on NPR (US)
3rd World music Album of the Year in Mojo (UK)
4th Best Global Album of the Year in Uncut (UK)
2nd Jazz, roots and folk album of the year in Time Out London (UK)
11th world/jazz/chanson Album of the Year in Les Inrockuptibles (France)
6th Groove Album of the Year in Exclaim! (Canada)
... and Kasai Allstars are really coming to Europe this year : 10 French dates in the second half of March, and a more extensive tour is planned for the summer...
Crammed Discs is proud to bring you news of our exciting marriage into the Akron/Family – one of the most inventive current US bands, with their inimitable, kaleidoscopic brand of global psychedelic folk rock music.
After building up a great, word-of-mouth reputation during the last few years, and gathering an ever-growing legion of obsessive fans, Akron/Family are on the verge of a major breakthrough with _Set 'Em Wild, Set 'Em Free_, their new album which will be coming out in Europe on Crammed on May 11th 2009.
_Is this what Animal Collective would sound like if Avey and Panda turned down the synth faders and slapped on a fresh coat of Americana?... this psychedelic track is Freaking/Awesome_
(Pitchfork review of the 1st preview single off the new album)
European tour dates: May 16 to early June (details soon on www.crammed.be)
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OUT MAY 11
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