Initially known as C0C as early as in 1997, then as ZC Virtual from 2008 to 2010, then as Slcnc Music, and since november 2015 under its current name, Crem Road records is a small collective featuring a handful of musicians. They reoccuring appear in the various projects featured by the label. There's now more than 100 releases, ranging from lofi to noise pop and underground electro. The main idea behind the collective is that all its members are fond of a raw, dirty sound, the one that belongs to what has to be called the Nord-Isère scene, in eastern France.
Most of theses musicians are close friends since their childhood or teen age. They've been playing music since the early 90's, in various bands, that at this time initially recorded -in their cellars, in their bedrooms, in their garages- some covers or tracks that used copyrighted samples, that prevent theses releases to be featured on the label catalog. But at the end of the 90's, as they began to perfect their musical skills, the fellowship started to record "clean" releases that could be published without having to deal with copyright issues.
In 1997 a webpage was created for the C0C collective, at a time when mp3 was still quite new and when providing download required costly server that the collective couldn't afford, no need to talk about streaming... But it changed rapidly with the even cheaper hosting plan, and in early 2000 C0C was able to put online its first track, a solo electro track due to Shangri-l, that has been unfortunately lost since.
Let's introduce the people behind the sound, just talking about their projects that are featured in Cremroad's catalog -otherwise, the list would be way too long !
* Shangri-l is a multi-instrumentist who runs several solo projects : Me In The Bath, Still Living Creature, Nicolas Chartoire, Nacso, Thcoreba Thmano. He also played in various bands featured by the label : Beatles II, Gorbie's Stuff and The Kuang.
* Le morse des mers played bass and sang in Brainless On Line and made several featuring on Me In The Bath releases, most notably playing bass for the live recording that was the Netlabel Day '15 release from Crem Road.
* Tao was Brainless On Line lead vocalist.
* Turm has been guitarist and singer for Beatles II and Gorbie's Stuff, and uses to join Me In The Bath as a drummer for concerts.
* L'Autrichien played the drums in Brainless On Line.
* Ism was Gorbie's Stuff drumer and second lead vocalist, and played this very musical instrument for Me In The Bath concerts, as well as for some Beatles II shows.
* JanMi was a guitarist for Brainless On Line.
* Nain+ too.
* Fulvio played guitar and sang in Gorbie's Stuff and The Kuang.
* Mazure was Beatles II drummer.
* D One is sometimes recording vocals for Me In The Bath.
But let's rewind the tape... So then in 2000 C0C was pioneering digital music distribution over the network, with an initial track... At this time Brainless On Line recorded some tracks that would eventually be issued years later. Actually the whole story started in april 2002 with the publication of Beatles II's EP. The band didn't last for long, but in 2004 Gorbie's Stuff started its carreer... That didn't last for long, either. In 2006 The Kuang recorded its first track, but finally initiated a break in 2009 - the band's spit has never been officially announced. Still Living Creature started to record in 2007... Nicolas Chartoire in 2008, Me In The Bath, in 2010, Thcoreba Thmano in 2011 and Nacso in 2012.
Since 2012, the musicians behind the collective are running -and funding, while there's, although, some nice people who make a donation from time to time- a music website, Clewn.org, which is used to provide free downloads for the Crem Road website, to power the ZC VUAG art group's web gallery, an art group which is closely related to Crem Road, some musicians of the label being contemporary artists as well (not always using the same name for both aspects of their creative work), and a webradio, Wumzle Radio, that is featuring the music of the label as well as from other projects from the self-published or netlabel scene.
The label always used to release physical copies, generally speaking handcrafted CD, cassettes, rarely USB sticks, and since recently, SD Cards. In november 2015 the label took its actual name, Crem Road, just because the corresponding dot com domain name was still available, and now has a "real" website and no longer a simple presence on a blogging platform.
Crem Road stands for Route de Crémieu, a central place in the mythology of Crem Road's musicians, since this is the road of the 198 bus, that led them, when they were teens, to the downtown of the city of Lyon. All of them belonging to the urban area, the second in France with more than two millions of inhabitants, surrounding and including this big city.
The new website has been an opportunity to start to do the label business a little more commercially, with now a minimum price for material releases -before that, people could pay what they want, and often, they choose to pay nothing- with an eshop more convenient for ordering a physical release than having to email someone.
The label is now releasing songs progressively, one on every two to five weeks, initially for streaming only, and once an album is complete it gets freely downloadable. The plans are to setup, in the near future, a simple way to support the musicians' effort by buying an affordable monthly subscription that would allow to download tracks in early access, before the album gets finished and available for free.
In the meanwhile, the whole catalog can be streamed with no limitation. The website is designed in a way that allows people to trigger continuous or random play, and have hours of music playing, without any action required.
Just after being launched, in December 2015, the new Crem Road website served a total of about 80 hours of streaming audio during this month.
Recently, the label moved away from its birthplace in Nord-Isère in the Lyon's urban area, to settle on the first plateau of the Jura mountains. Also, it was joined by new artists from France and from Canada, with Didjaws and Twitbob. Everything else expressed above remains valid.