Toronto-based record label We Are Busy Bodies has announced the remastered release of the rare 1975 self-titled album from Canadian high school band 1001 Est Crémazie on its 50th anniversary. The record will be released on April 25.
Similarly to the tradition of American high school bands like Kashmere Stage Band and the Douglas High School Band releasing albums on private pressings, 1001 Est Crémaze is the direct Canadian equivalent.
The 10-track record features two original compositions "Bright Moments" and "Le Roi Muffé." "Bright Movements" is highly acclaimed for its drum and conga breakbeat that has been appropriated by DJs and hip-hop aficionados, while "Le Roi Muffé" is highly prized by the likes of Madlib and MF DOOM for its similar sonic space to Bob Dorough's "Three Is the Magic Number."
At the time of the concert, Jean-Yves Quesnel, a sociocultural animator who returned to teaching history, seized the opportunity to record the Rocking Glass Show, which filled the Collège André Grasset auditorium to capacity. He, as well as a few other colleagues, formed Collège Edouard-Monpetit after the Rocking Grass became the Phone Grass to invest in the college's studios and immortalize 1001 Est Crémazie.
"We hid a recorder in Benoit Sarrazin's piano (pianist on two tracks on the album) without him even knowing it. We just told him afterwards," Quesnel shared of the album. "This record reflects the spirit of an era, the birth of modern Quebec, a renewed vitality. 'The echoes of a Quiet Revolution, which was still rumbling and trying to be heard.' It was therefore in phase with this pivotal moment in the Quebec ecosystem — which decompartmentalized the school system and gave birth to the Cégeps — that 1001 Est Crémazie was born."
Fifty years after its initial release, 1001 Est Crémazie, which originally only had 500 copies, has been re-evaluated and remastered and finally made available to the public. With "Le Roi Muffé" and "Bright Moments" available now, the record is available to pre-order on Bandcamp.
100 Est Crémazie:
- The Way We Were
- The Sting
- Mon Ami Qui Fruit
- Le Picbois
- Les Gens De Mon Pays
- Watermelon Man
- Comin' Home Baby
- Take Five
- Le Roi Muffe
- Bright Moments