Aksak Maboul

Aksak Maboul are a Belgian avant-rock band founded in 1977 by Marc Hollander with Vincent Kenis, and now revolving around Hollander and Véronique Vincent. Aksak Maboul hasn't stopped changing shape and form throughout its existence (the only permanent member being its initiator), exploring diverse musical styles with their own aesthetic approach. 
Aksak Maboul started out with two studio albums, "Onze Danses Pour Combattre la Migraine" (1977) and "Un Peu de l'Âme des Bandits" (1980), the latter with ex-Henry Cow members Chris Cutler and Fred Frith. They were also active in the Rock in Opposition movement in 1979.
Around the mid-1980s, Aksak Maboul went into a 30-year hiatus, during which Marc Hollander fully devoted himself to his Crammed Discs label, before resuming his activities as a musician in 2014 by working on the unfinished third Aksak Maboul album, "Ex-Futur Album" (by Véronique Vincent & Aksak Maboul), that had been written and recorded between 1980 and 1983. The album came out in October 2014. Since the mid 2010s, Aksak Maboul revolves around Marc Hollander and Véronique Vincent, seconded by Faustine Hollander. The band started touring again in 2015, with a new line-up. In May 2020, they have released a brand-new double album entitled "Figures".
History.
The story of Aksak Maboul began in 1977 when producer Marc Moulin commissioned Marc Hollander to write and record an album for his ephemeral label Kamikaze. Hollander soon invited his friend Vincent Kenis to join in, and the pair recorded the album "Onze Danses Pour Combattre la Migraine" (French for "Eleven Dances for Fighting Migraine"). Hollander (keyboards, reeds, percussion) and Kenis (guitar, bass guitar, keyboards) were joined by guests such as Chris Joris (percussion, keyboards), Catherine Jauniaux (voice) and others. The album was released in 1977 under the name Marc Hollander / Aksak Maboul on Kamikaze Records, and later reissued on Crammed Discs.
"Onze Danses Pour Combattre la Migraine" was a playful mix of musical forms, cultures and genres. With drum machines and looping organ lines, it shuffled between improvised jazz, ethnic music, electronics and classical music. It was largely an instrumental album with snatches of singing and voices. The album contains many ideas and directions later explored by the Crammed Discs label, which Marc Hollander founded in 1980, and still runs to this day.
In late 1977 Aksak Maboul started performing live, with Hollander, Kenis, Chris Joris, as well as Marc Moulin (keyboards), who was soon replaced by Frank Wuyts. Denis van Hecke (cello) and Michel Berckmans (bassoon, oboe) of Univers Zéro joined in early 1978. In early 1979, Hollander invited Chris Cutler and Fred Frith of the recently defunct avant-rock group Henry Cow to join Aksak Maboul on their next record. They rehearsed together, performed in a few concerts and then went to Sunrise Studio, Kirchberg in Switzerland to record their second album, "Un Peu de l'Âme des Bandits" (French for "A Little of the Bandits' Spirit"). This was released in 1980 on Crammed Discs, a new independent record label Hollander had created to release the album.
"Un Peu de l'Ame des Bandits" (released as "Aqsak Maboul") was more intense and experimental than their first album. It contained complex written sections as well as improvised ambient pieces. It used sampling before samplers were invented and was a mixture of tangos, Turkish tunes, chamber rock, noisy punk rock and pseudo-Varèse music. Like the first album, it was instrumental with a little singing and voices.
Back on the road again, Aksak Maboul joined the Rock in Opposition (RIO) movement and in April 1979 they performed at an RIO festival at the Teatro dell'Elfo in Milano, Italy. Aksak Maboul were one of the last of the original RIO bands.
In early 1980, Hollander founded the Crammed Discs independent record label. A few months later the original nucleus of Aksak Maboul (Hollander and Kenis) and the core of a Brussels band Les Tueurs de la Lune de Miel joined forces to become The Honeymoon Killers. They toured Europe between 1980 and 1981, although still under the name Aksak Maboul. "Bosses de Crosses", one of the first pieces they composed, was included on the CD re-issue of "Un Peu de l'Ame des Bandits". In 1981, they recorded an album entitled "Tueurs de la Lune de Miel / Honeymoon Killers", which attracted a lot of attention across Europe and Japan. The band toured for four years under that name.
During that period, Hollander and Honeymoon Killers vocalist Véronique Vincent, aided by Kenis, wrote and recorded a series of electronic avant-pop tracks which were meant to become Aksak Maboul's third album. The release was announced in the first Crammed Discs catalogues (in the early 1980s), but it was not completed and was put on hold, until 2014. However in 1983 a single from these sessions "I'm Always Crying" was released from these sessions under Vincent's name with production credited to Aksak Maboul. 
The last Aksak Maboul recording to appear in the 1980s came out on a 1984 compilation album, "Made to Measure Vol. 1", where the original duo of Hollander and Kenis contributed seven tracks of new material composed for a play by Michel Gheude based on the life of Maïakovsky. The band performed once at Kitchen in New York with line-up of Hollander, Kenis, Vincent and Gerald Fenerberg in 1986. By the mid-1980s Aksak Maboul ceased to exist as a permanent group, while Hollander and Kenis played an active role in Crammed Discs' musical policies (producing and/or performing on dozens of albums,). Still in 1987 album La Débutante by singer Sonoko was partly produced by Aksak Maboul. In the late 1980s, Hollander and Kenis produced several electronic dance music tracks under the name "Mr Big Mouse".
In 2010, Aksak Maboul produced a new track for "Tradi-Mods vs Rockers", the tribute album to the "Congotronics series" which came out on Hollander's Crammed Discs label. Aksak Maboul's contribution is "Land Dispute", a new take on a song by Congolese band Kasai Allstars. The song is performed by Marc Hollander, Clément Marion & Faustine Hollander.
In 2014, Hollander resumed work on the unfinished 3rd Aksak Maboul album from 1981–83, mixing and editing tracks from demos and rough versions (some of them retrieved from cassette tapes). Entitled "Ex-Futur Album", the album was released under the name "Véronique Vincent & Aksak Maboul", preceded by a first single ("Chez les Aborigènes") (the song had been released as a rough demo on Crammed Discs' compilation "Crammed Global Soundclash 1980–89: The Connoisseur Edition" in 2003.). The album was followed by a video, "Afflux de Luxe".
In early 2015, encouraged by the enthusiastic reactions to "Ex-Futur Album", Aksak Maboul started playing shows for the first time since the mid-80s, with a new line-up including Véronique Vincent (vocals), Marc Hollander (keyboards), Faustine Hollander (guitar, bass, vocals), Sebastiaan Van den Branden (guitar, bass, synth) and Christophe Claeys (drums, percussion), the latter two being also members of Amatorski.
A full album of reinterpretations (covers and reworks) of the songs from "Ex-Futur Album", entitled "16 Visions of Ex-Futur", came out in October 2016. It features contributions by Jaakko Eino Kalevi, Aquaserge, Laetitia Sadier, Forever Pavot, Flavien Berger, Nite Jewel, Bullion, Burnt Friedman, Hello Skinny, Marc Collin, Bérangère Maximin, Lena Willikens etc., as well as two "self-covers" recorded by the 2016 line-up of Aksak Maboul. On this occasion, the band created a live show entitled "Aksak Maboul Revue", for which they were joined onstage by Laetitia Sadier, Jaakko Eino Kalevi, and members of Aquaserge.
At the end of 2018, Aksak Maboul announced that they were starting to work on a brand-new album. Entitled "Figures", it's a double album, which was released in May 2020. "Figures" was written by M.Hollander and Véronique Vincent, and produced by Hollander. It features the band's current line-up of Marc Hollander, Véronique Vincent, Faustine Hollander, Lucien Fraipont and Erik Heestermans, with contributions by guests such as Fred Frith, Tuxedomoon's Steven Brown, and several members of Aquaserge.
Aksak Maboul in the press.
On the reissue of "Onze danses pour combattre la migraine":
On the reissue of "Un peu de l’âme des bandits":
On "Ex-Futur Album":
On "Figures":
On recent live shows: