Aksak Maboul

condition (record/cover): EX / EX 

In the spring of 1977, two young Belgians, Marc Hollander (later the founder of Crammed Discs) and Vincent Kenis (later the Congotronics producer), holed up in a Brussels studio with Marc Moulin of Telex producing alongside, and made an album that would refuse to belong to any decade for the next half-century. Onze Danses Pour Combattre La Migraine first surfaced on Marc Moulin's ephemeral Kamikaze Disks at the close of 1977 and lay dormant until Hollander launched Crammed Discs in 1981 and reissued it as CRAM 011, the pressing now in front of you.

Eleven dances to combat the migraine: the cure is suspect, since the music itself swerves through klezmer, Erik Satie, Albert Ayler, dub, Tropicália, library cues and what would much later be recognised as proto-techno. "Saure Gurke" anticipates the bubbling chord progressions of early Detroit by a decade. "Milano Per Caso" makes Hollander's reed work flutter like a Balkan Steve Lacy. Chris Joris's percussion roots the whole concoction without ever letting it settle. The record swings even when it appears to be marching.

This is an original vintage Crammed pressing, the version that travelled the globe, fed the Rock In Opposition community and connected the Brussels scene to Recommended Records (Aksak Maboul would soon host Fred Frith and Chris Cutler on the follow-up Un Peu De L'Âme Des Bandits). A keystone of the Crammed catalog; a pre-digital phantasia of European misfit imagination.