The Southern Californian production team Michael Raymond Russell and Adam Douglas Manella (MRR-ADM), formerly known as MHE, have self-released one 10″ EP and a promotion-only CD. In the past, they have collaborated with the likes of Ghostface Killah, Malcolm Catto and Mike Burnham. They are currently working on their debut album for Now-Again – but they’ve been doing so for about eight years, so don’t hold your breath.
Listen: “Get Ready”
We told a bit of Seoul’s He 6’s story in a previous pick. Their earlier incarnation, the He 5, deserves note for producing the most fuzzed out Christmas album in a country that’s famous for such novelties. But the psychedelic-funk heads are more into the band as a sextet, and for good reason. Their first two albums as the He 6 contain some gorgeous psychedelia, subtly funky, and accompanied by soaring choruses. Their sought after Go Go Sound ’71 albums are amongst the rarest in all of Korea and, as instrumentals, are easy on Western ears not attuned to the nuances of Korean singing.
This album, released after their second Go Go Sound album, is the album that turned me on to Korean psych. To give credit where it’s due, a certain Bay-Area producer sampled a track from this album in the mid 90s, a friend who was in the studio mentioned this “insane Korean record” to me, and, some years later I heard from yet another producer, in one of those “six degrees of separation” moments, that he had found a reissue of the album in Australia, where one of the band?s original members transplanted himself sometime after the He 6 took on disco and (happily) disbanded.
So I’m no pioneer at this, just one idiot in the line of many, buying any wild looking Korean record for way too much money only to find out that “Go Go” could mean “sounds like Peggy Lee” as easily as it could mean “sounds like Cream,” and only to find out that most collectors in Seoul took lessons from their counterparts in Addis Ababa as to how to care for their vinyl.
All of that is worth it, of course, with one listen to this epic cover of the Rare Earth’s “Get Ready.” At once an excuse to stretch out into the outer realms of commercial accessibility and a lesson in restraint introduced by a deep study of funk (or funk-influenced rock, as it were), this fourteen minute jam builds momentously from start to finish.
Listen to an example: “Rich Man, Poor Man.”
Andrew Wartts, based in Bloomington, Illinois, recorded his landmark gospel album There Is A God Somewhere album in the early 1980s and released it on the small Champ imprint based in Nashville, Tennessee. Wartts sound – a mixture of soulful, funky, melancholic yet celebratory exhortations to the Lord – belies the music’s age. Now-Again represents both master and publishing for this wholly original entry into the Gospel-Funk archives.
In association with Irwin Chusid, director of the Raymond Scott Archives, and Basta Audio-Visuals, Now-Again represents a wealth of experimental electronic music by the late pioneer Raymond Scott. Scott’s music has been sampled by El P, Gorillaz, J.Dilla (“Lightworks,” from Stones Throw’s Donuts) and Madlib (“Electric Company,” from Stones Throw’s Beat Konducta: Movie Scenes). Now-Again also represents the melodic folk-funk of Wendy and Bonnie (don’t ask us how Raymond Scott and the femme duo are related – they just are). Both master and publishing from this vast catalog can be cleared by Now-Again.
Now-Again, in conjunction with upstate New York-based researcher, archivist (and Daptone and Kay Dee Records compiler) David Griffiths, represents a host of New York and Ohio based soul, funk and jazz bands. Ranging from beat-heavy ballads to superb uptempo soul shakers, this catalog is as unique as the States that produced it.