After spending 2008 ceaselessly bringing the party to festivals, concert halls, TV studios and clubs, gathering a host of awards and chart positions along the way, 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!*
The “Disko Partizani” album, with its anthemic title track (a singalong hit across Europe with a video that’s become a YouTube sensation, 3 million views and counting!) as well as follow-up smash “Disko Boy”, saw the foundations laid for a pioneering brand of totally borderless European pop music. Now, with “Planet Paprika”, Shantel's vision is complete, and resistance is futile...
[image 2 100x100]
*MEGAFAUN Gather, Form & Fly*
cd cram 152
Digital release : July 27
Physical release: Sept 28
"Megafaun don't just catalog American musical languages, they breed them", writes Pitchfork. Megafaun was built by Joe Westerlund and brothers Brad and Phil Cook from the ashes of DeYarmond Edison, the group they had formed in their native Wisconsin with longtime friend Justin "Bon Iver" Vernon.
They're part of that rare crop of young artists driven by an unquenchable thirst for a wide range of sounds and styles. While very much at ease with several strains of American folk music, they're masterfully reinventing tradition by infusing it with radically alien elements, inspired by anything from free jazz to 50s experimental electronics. They've performed over 250 shows in the US since '07, and have done live collaborations with new Crammed labelmates Akron/Family, with minimalist composer Arnold Dreyblatt & more.
Gather, Form & Fly can be described as an ode to death, love, musical history (from blues to musique concrète), community, tradition, melody and experimentation. Or, more simply, as a magnificent album of melodic folk music, strong and original.
[image 3 100x100]
*ZEEP People & Things*
cd cram 148
Release date: September 28th
Zeep, aka the London-based duet of *Nina Miranda & Chris Franck* bring us a fresh, immediate pop album that dips its elegant toes into many musical pools. Catchy escapades, space-age downtempo rock, reflective atmospheres, playful spaghetti western disco and cartoon-like narratives, this album is full of fun and surprises, an excursion into which we're irresistibly drawn by Nina's unique, seductive voice, supported by Chris' immaculate musicianship and production skills.
Also worth mentioning is Zeep's daring Brazilian folk rewiring of the Specials’ classic “Ghost Town”, which has already been given the enthusiastic backing of The Specials’ Jerry Dammers.
Nina and Chris were founding members of Smoke City and Da Lata, and have collaborated with artists such as Tony Allen, Baaba Maal, Ernest Ranglin, Sly and Robbie, Vieux Farka Touré, Nitin Sawhney, Jah Wobble, Femi Kuti, Bebel Gilberto and more.
[image 4 100x100]
*BLACK (Original Soundtrack)*
cd cram 151
Release date tbc
Digital single *feat. MC Jean Gab'1 & Tony Allen* out now
"BLACK" is a neo-Blaxploitation film set in Dakar (Senegal), directed by Pierre Laffargue and starring famous, provocative French rapper MC Jean Gab'1. The film was warmly welcomed on its world premiere at SXSW ("From a modern update of Shaft in Africa to a lunatic, witchy, bastard offspring of Cat People and Ssssss. Gloriously lunatic" - Cinematical.com).
The exciting original theme song - a driving Afrobeat track written & recorded by *Tony Allen* and featuring the inimitable vocal stylings of *MC Jean Gab'1* - will be coming out in July as a digital single and promo CD, to coincide with the theatrical release of the film in France. As for the soundtrack album, it will also feature a wealth of gems from the '70s as well as great contemporary tracks (complete track list to be announced soon).
The film will be shown this Summer at various film festivals in the UK (including London's Film 4 Frightfest on Aug 28 & 30), Canada and the Czech Republic.
[image 5 100x100]
*VARIOUS ARTISTS It's A Crammed, Crammed World*
cd cram 149
Release date: October
A 16-track compilation featuring the best of Crammed's updated roster of artists, with tracks by Lonely Drifter Karen, Mocky, Shantel, Staff Benda Bilili, Akron/Family, Chicha Libre, Flat Earth Society, Zeep, Balkan Beat Box, U-cef (feat. Damon Albarn), Allá, Koçani Orkestar, Hector Zazou & Swara, Megafaun, Cibelle and Kasai Allstars, all neatly sequenced to create an exciting listening experience…
It's worth noting that 10 of these artists have joined our relentlessly morphing & evolving label only since 2008!
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.