Download Cards: Now Available With Every Now-Again LP

If you purchased our Stark Reality box set or Apple and The Three Oranges LP, you undoubtably noticed a big change in our vinyl packages. Well, you actually didn’t even need to purchase them, you just needed to look at their stickers: we’re now including download cards with every Now-Again EP and LP. Yes, this is due to “popular demand” and is another example of us taking what you suggest seriously.

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Photos/Audio: Zamrock Rehearsals – Jagari Chanda, Rikki Ililonga, Karl Hector & The Malcouns (Free MP3 Downloads!)

Late last year we mentioned that WITCH’s Emmanuel “Jagari” Chanda and Musi-O-Tunya founder Rikki Ililonga were readying to journey from Lusaka to Rennes to perform Zamrock live with Karl HEctor & The Malcouns at France’s Transmusicales Festival. Well the show went off – and it went off well. So well, in fact, that Jagari and Rikki are again traveling to France to perform at Espace Fraternite – Magic Mirror (Aubervilliers) – again with Karl Hector and crew.

So we’re showing you some rehearsal photos, shot by Denis Pernath at the Hector rehearsal space in Munich, and offering two downloads from the Transmusicales Festival below.

Download: Rikki Ililonga with Karl Hector & The Malcouns: Dark Sunrise (Live at Transmusicales 2013)
Download: Rikki Ililonga with Karl Hector & The Malcouns: Munzi Wa Kangwanda (Live at Transmusicales 2013)

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Announcing: Enjoy The Experience

Selections from the Sinecure Books publication Enjoy The Experience: psych, funk, folk, jazz, lounge, boogie and straight-up-weirdness from American private press albums. Release date: May 21st.

Enjoy The Experience: Homemade Records 1958-1992 is the inaugural offering from Sinecure Books, the publishing company that Now-Again’s Egon co-founded with Johan Kugelberg. Packaged as a hardcover, and weighing in at 512 pages, it is the most comprehensive overview of the American “private press” movement from the latter half of the 20th Century that could possibly be assembled. We’re pleased to be distributing a 2CD/2LP anthology of psych, funk, folk, jazz, lounge, disco, boogie and just-plain-weirdness culled from the the book’s selections.

Take note: this is not a novelty freak show. Contained in this anthology are examples of some of the most highly regarded rock, soul, jazz, funk and singer/songwriter albums from the 60s through the early 80s. From the awkward-yet-talented to the genius-yet-bizarre, one thing unites all musicians presented here: they sincerely hoped to become stars, they committed themselves to record, and they left themselves vulnerable to an industry not understanding of nuance, not appreciative of character. While Enjoy The Experience the book details a forceful American cultural experience that stands in juxtaposition to the mainstream even as its creators attempted to infiltrate it, Enjoy The Experience the album shows the breadth of American creativity in a compelling, start-to-finish listen. Not all of it is easy to digest, but this music is essential to the 20th century American experience.

We will be updating this post with more information about the anthology, downloads and the book in coming weeks.

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Forthcoming: 4th Coming

It’s not like we’re not busy enough as it is – but the music of Los Angeles soul/funk outfit 4th Coming is so damn good that, a few years ago, we decided a retrospective was absolutely necessary. We’re thrilled to tell you that 4th Coming principal Hank Porter was at the Now-Again offices today to sign on the dotted line and authorize us to delve deep into the Coming’s eight singles and compile an anthology.

As a celebration, we’re offering a free download of their all-too-tough “Cruising Central Avenue,” mistakenly called “Crusing Down Sunset” on our California Funk, below.

Download: 4th Coming “Cruising Central Avenue.”

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Photos: Apple Rehearses With The Breakestra In Los Angeles

No, it’s not confirmed that there will be an Ed “Apple” Nelson gig in LA supported by The Breakestra. We’re just saying that, over the past thirteen years, stranger things have happened (as examples: the Funky 16 Corners live in 2001, featuring members of The Highlighters, Leroy and The Drivers, Co-Real Artists and Bernard “Spider” Harrison himself; the L.A. Carnival live in 2003, featuring leader Lester Abrams and lead vocalist Leslie Smith). We’re just saying that Apple can still beat out that Arthur Monday “What Comes Around Goes Around” beat pretty damn good – as proved at a three hour rehearsal that Breakestra leader Miles Tackett held at his Highland Park house this past Friday. And we have the pictures to prove it.

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