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This anthology took root in a most unusual meeting of the minds: Christophe Lemaire, then creative director at French sportswear giant Lacoste, contacted Eothen “Egon” Alapatt, then general manager at L.A. indie Stones Throw Records, to inquire as to a collaboration between his eponymous clothing line and two of Stones Throw’s most well known talents – Madlib and J.Dilla. A collaboration did follow, and a friendship between the two was born – one stemming from a mutual respect for each other’s craft, and a conjoined goal to celebrate the classic while pushing forward into the future.
This anthology took form after one of many meetings at Lemaire’s boutique in the Marais district in Paris. The designer wondered if some of Egon’s Now-Again titles would be available for purchase, for sale in his shop? Egon – aware of Lemaire’s deep knowledge of the past forty-some-odd years of musical innovation and impeccable taste – proposed something more fitting: another collaboration, whereby Lemaire would pick songs from Now-Again’s vast catalog, which they could present as something unique… something new… as Lemaire puts it in his liner notes to this anthology – “a psychedelic journey of delicate perception.” While the worlds of fashion and music often meet, the missions of Christophe Lemaire and Now-Again – to break down the barriers that exist between genres; to entice those who might be interested not by force, but by subtle suggestion – mirror each other almost directly.
This project took some years to bloom. In the interim, Lemaire replaced Jean Paul Gaultier at the iconic French fashion house Hermès; Egon took Now-Again on a slightly different path than he’d originally envisioned for the label – obtaining the rights to catalogs from all over the world and releasing new music that addressed four decades of cultural and rhythmic change. This breadth gave Lemaire the room to maneuver as he selected tracks from the USA to Europe, from the Middle East to the African continent, which all included, as he wrote “influences that have traveled in the shape of a mysterious form that juggles space and time.”
And now: Where Are You From? “16 tracks of global psychedelic rock, funk and folk grooves from 1968 until the present day,” as procured by Now-Again, selected and annotated by Lemaire, and handsomely packaged for your enjoyment.