Crammed Discs is an independent record label whose output blends world music, rock, pop, and electronica.
Based in Brussels, Belgium, Crammed was founded in 1980 by Marc Hollander of Aksak Maboul and has since released around 400 albums and 300 singles, working with artists from all over the world (from Western Europe and the US to the Balkans and North & Central Africa, from South America to the Middle East and Japan).
Crammed Discs is run by Marc Hollander (A&R) with Hanna Gorjaczkowska (artist development, marketing, distribution & art direction) and Vincent Kenis (producer, director of the Congotronics Series).
[1] However, the label has always systematically worked with electronic music, indie pop and rock artists, and "doesn't see itself as a world music label: it just happens to enjoy working with artists from around the world, some of whom sing in languages other than English" (as stated in the label's manifesto).
[2] Crammed has been described as "one of the most boldly eclectic independent labels around" (Pitchfork),[3] as "innovative and groundbreaking"[4] and "visionary",[5] a.o.
for steadily avoiding to confine its roster "to one, potentially homogeneous category" and encouraging artists with plural identities to create new forms of music.
[6] In 2011, Crammed Discs celebrated its 30th anniversary by setting up the Congotronics vs Rockers project, a "superband" including ten Congolese and ten indie rock musicians (including members of Konono No1, Deerhoof, Wildbirds & Peacedrums, Kasai Allstars, Skeletons, Juana Molina and Vincent Kenis), who collaborated to create a common repertoire and performed at 15 major festivals and venues in ten countries.
The label's latest signings (2016-2023) are Parisian electronic music collective Acid Arab, Portuguese singer & musician Lula Pena, young French-Welsh band Fauna Twin, French experimental pop band Aquaserge, Matias Aguayo & The Desdemonas, the new rock band founded by the German-Chilean electronic music producer, Berlin-based Spanish experimental musician Don The Tiger, French-Chilean band Nova Materia, Lagos/London project Ekiti Sound, Ugandan/British band Nihiloxica, Californian musician Scott Gilmore, producer Pascal Gabriel and his new Stubbleman project, and Palestinian techno duet Zenobia.
Because of the diversity of the label's output since its early days in the 1980s, its founders chose to create several sub-labels.
[12] This policy was discarded during the latter part of the 1990s, because Crammed felt that genre-blending had finally become acceptable.
Congotronoics is not a sub-label per se, but a collection of releases by Congolese bands who play their own respective styles of electrified traditional music (such as Konono No1 and Kasai Allstars).
As for the Made To Measure composers' series, it is being discreetly revived since 2013 (after having remained inactive for 18 years), as 6 new volumes have recently come out.