Recent Activities
Kramer is associated with the formation of the so-called "slowcore" movement, thanks mainly to his production work for two seminal bands of the era: Low, and Galaxie 500. He continues to produce, mix and master a great variety of artists worldwide.
Kramer currently operates a private CD/LP Mastering and Mixing studio in Florida, and has resumed his activities as a record producer after a 6-year hiatus, during which time he produced only a handful of select artists, including Joy Zipper, Linda Draper, Jeff Lewis, and Danielson. In 2006 he announced the return of his record company, under the new name "Second-Shimmy". The debut release (released October 10, 2006) is I Killed the Monster - 21 Artists Performing the Songs by Daniel Johnston, featuring performances by Dot Allison, Jad Fair & Kramer, Daniel Smith (of Danielson) & Sufjan Stevens, Kimya Dawson, R. Stevie Moore, Major Matt Mason USA, Jeff Lewis, Joy Zipper, and Kramer himself, among others.
Second-Shimmy has worldwide digital distribution through Orchard Digital.
In 2006, Kramer worked exclusively on the LP Exaltation of Larks, a solo release from UK artist Dot Allison, which he cites as his finest work as producer/arranger, and features early 60s style orchestral arrangements on each song. The LP was released in September 2007 on Cooking Vinyl in the UK and P-Vine in Japan.
Kramer has released 3 solo records of "pop" music, and 2 CDs of "new music" on John Zorn's Tzadik label. He is currently working The Brill Building, his five-year effort to record cover versions of hit singles written in the Brill Building in the late 50s and early 60s, also for Zorn's Tzadik label.
By the beginning of 2007, Kramer began to focus more intensely on mastering, and less on the full-time producing that has kept him on the road since the demise of Shimmy-Disc in 1998.
In 2007 (amongst numerous assorted mixing and mastering projects), Kramer produced Finnish band 22-Pistepirkko in Helsinki, THE Nightjars in Wales, and Leader Cheetah in Australia. Also in 2007, Kramer remixed Mississippi for Steve Adey and visited the studio of A Shoreline Dream in October 2007 for a week long session mixing and mastering their album Recollections of Memory. In 2010 he returned to Sydney and Melbourne to produce a number of Australian works including The Glimmer's release Start A Fire, an album which frequently draws comparison to the music of Quentin Tarantino's films.
Kramer premiered his composition "Things to Come" in Tokyo in 2007. Hoping to perform the piece annually, he has subsequently performed it in Tel Aviv in 2008, Melbourne in 2009 and Paris in 2010. In January 2008 Kramer embarked upon his first tour since 1999's "Last Tour of the Century" with Jad Fair; 14 cities in 14 days in Japan with Mike Watt and Samm Bennett in a "dueling bass" trio called Brother's Sister's Daughter.
As of 2011, Kramer limits his music-related activities to mixing and mastering at his home studio in South Florida, stating that he will "not step foot in another airport until the permanent repeal of the Patriot Act."
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