Now-Again first signed Brasilian guitarist Fabiano do Nascimento when he was part of the Triorganico band. Dança dos Tempos is his debut album as a solo artist, and it features legendary percussionist Airto Moreira in his first album project in over ten years. Dança dos Tempos follows folkloric Brasilian music as experienced through the mind and able fingers of an expansive musician, not yet thirty years old, and combines the heady ‘60s and ‘70s experimentalism of Hermeto Pascoal and Baden Powell with the childlike elegance of music played and passed down by native Brasilians for generations. It is the second Brasilian album released on Now-Again, following Seu Jorge and Almaz.

Moreira, the bandleader, songwriter and producer who recorded a bevy of titles under his own name, with his wife Flora Purim, and whose resume contains the names of – seriously – every musician worth mentioning from America or Brasil from the past 50 years – plays percussion on the album and is joined by do Nascimento’s long time drummer, Ricardo “Tiki” Pasillas on trap drums. Do Nascimento and his girlfriend handle vocals on what is otherwise an airy instrumental album that allows the guitarist’s virtuosity to shine through originals, folkloric Brasilian songs, and select covers by the likes of Pascoal and Powell, both formative influences on the guitarist.

These duets show the camaraderie that two master Brasilian musicians – of two different generations, but of the same spirit – share with comrades of ages past as they imagine music for the years to come. These tracks were recorded live in the studio with no overdubs by producer Luther Russell and engineer Jason Hiller – straight to 2” analog-tape, and only sparingly mastered to focus on the subtleties of the performances.

Triorganico, now disbanded, recorded Brasilian flavored, minimalist Latin jazz a la Baden Powell and Hermeto. Waxpoetics, amongst others, uh, waxed poetic about the band calling Convivencia, their sole album, “….something you’d expect to hear floating from a smoky Bossa Nova club in the 1950s – not downtown LA… Triorganico finds comfort in history and hindsight.”

Now-Again, in conjunction with Canadian producer Jason “Moss” Connoy and Indonesian rock legend Benny Soebarjda, will release an anthology that represents an extensive survey into the Indonesian psychedelic and progressive rock scene that flowered in Jakarta in the early 1970s. The release is planned for early 2010. Researcher Chandra Drews, an Indonesian-national who is assisting in assembling the liner notes for the compilation, recently interviewed Soebarjda in Holland. His story gives a brief glimpse into what is to come with this compilation:

“Hardly any bands ever come out of Indonesia having developed a cult following in the West. One notable exception would be 1970s progressive psychedelic rockers Sharkmove and its later incarnation as Giant Step who despite never having mainstream success in their country of origin are steadily gaining popularity amongst dusty fingered crate diggers worldwide. Sharkmove was established by guitarist/vocalist Benny Soebardja (who with his high-school band The Peels had modest success not only in Indonesia but also neighbouring Singapore and Malaysia), keyboardist Soman Loebis, drummer Sammy Zakaria, vocalist Bhagu Ramchand and bassist Janto Diablo as a means to pass idle time during their student years studying at Bandung’s Technical University (ITB). The five-piece played local underground venues for a few months before travelling to the capital Jakarta in 1973 to press a mere 1000 copies of their first and only album: the seven track Ghede Chokra’s Sharkmove (Ghede Chokra translates as ‘Great Session’ in Sanskrit) featuring amongst others the nine minute Prog Rock tour-de-force ‘My Life’, the more melodic drug awareness track ‘Madat’ and the politically charged Led Zeppelin inspired Fuzz Rock ‘Evil War’ (spouting anti-governmental lyrics was risqué to say the least in Suharto’s thirty year dictatorship of Indonesia, even when sung in English) without ever signing to a record label, thus being pioneers of fundamental independent record producing in Indonesia. Though never successful as recording artists in their homeland, they did strike a notable cult following in Jakarta and Bandung as a result of their regular gigs with Indonesia’s better-known rock bands God Bless and SAS in the capital. Sharkmove folded as soon as they started with Soebardja dissolving the group after the tragic and untimely death of Soman Loebis in a road accident in Jakarta. The band’s second coming as Giant Step was a much more fruitful one commercially with the band releasing a full seven studio albums to date and finally receiving some mainstream popularity in Indonesia in the eighties. Giant Step’s first two albums; Giant Step Mark One and Giant on The Move as with Ghede Chokra’s Sharkmove are also receiving plenty of attention from the vinyl heads notably for the tracks ‘Air Pollution’ and the heavily progressive ‘Waste Time’. Giant Step still play charity events and reunion tours across Indonesia’s major cities.”