If you’re a frequent visitor to this site, you might have seen/heard Egon’s set at Boiler Room’s debut in San Francisco. This is the many-times-postponed follow up for their “Collections” series, which we and the Boiler Room crew have tried to get right. It aired live at noon (BST) on Friday June 27th and is available as an archive here:

From Boiler Room’s site:

“He took us on a wondrous musical journey spanning psych, funk, prog and more; interspersed with useful information about each release such as which presses to look for if keen, and what’s going to be reissued for our ears to delight in.

We traveled through Spain with Madlib favorite Pan y Regaliz, Eastern Europe with our old loves Indexi and Drago Mlinarec plus a newfound one, Drugi Nacin; Iran with Kouroush Yaghmaei, over to the African continent with Zambian legends Ngozi Family (keep your eyes peeled for a respective anthology on the label in 2015), Ethiopia with Mahmoud Ahmed, Nigerian band The Hikers, and an unmissable slew of Angolan 45’s – this just to name a few.”

Out now – the long awaited second album by the originators of Afrodelic Kraut Funk – brand new excursions into another world of sound feat. members of Poets of Rhythm and Whitefield Brothers. Eco-wallet CD and digital album available immediately; LP preorder at our Rappcats store!

As we told you when we announced Unstraight Ahead, this album finds Karl Hector and his cohorts exploring territories even outside of the expansive scope of their debut album Sahara Swing. On this album, the West African sounds of Ghana and Mali meet the East African sounds of Mulatu Astatke’s Ethiopian jazz and are tied together with the groove heavy experimentalism of The Malcouns’ 70s Krautrock godfathers: Can, of course, but also more obscure and equally adventurous groups like Agitation Free, Ibliss and Tomorrow’s Gift.

It’s out now on CD and digitally – via our store at Rappcats, on iTunes and via our Now-Again Deluxe subscription service at Drip.fm. Preorders for the LP – with an anticipated ship date of 07.07.

Download: “Push Na Ya”
Buy: Karl Hector & The Malcouns Unstraight Ahead at Rappcats
Buy: Karl Hector & The Malcouns Unstraight Ahead at iTunes

Sixteen Things We Know About Damon is a short film by Andrew Gura: a voice and music driven story that uses animated archival stills, stock footage and typography, lo-fi textures, left-field sound design to tell the nearly impossible backstory behind Damon’s Song of a Gypsy – one that encapsulates the last bloom of the flower power movement before it decayed into the haze of the ‘70s underground. It traces the arch of a pop hopeful descending into chaos, becoming the tortured soul who would create an LP to file alongside works by other lost greats of the late ‘60s, from Shuggie Otis to Rodriguez.

Filmmaker and video director Gura (Madvillain, Nas, Saul Williams) first collaborated with Now-Again’s Egon in 2002, for a short film he produced about the search for the Omaha funk ensemble L.A. Carnival. Ten years after that film, Gura and Egon traveled to Fresno, California, to discover more about Stephen David Heitkotter and his legendary psychedelic rock album. It was over the course of working on a Heitkotter short that the two turned their attention to Damon and his landmark Song of a Gypsy album. Although no archival footage of Damon’s sessions exist, Gura created a short film that captures the milieu into which this masterpiece was born, and Egon tells Damon’s story in a series of vignettes that opens the door to investigate more about this lost masterpiece.

Song of a Gypsy is out now as an LP w/download card, hardbound 2 CD casebook with bonus tracks and digitally. You can purchase it via our webstore at Rappcats or on iTunes.

Buy it here.

Tracklist:

Chapter 1 – Prologue 3.32
Chapter 2 – Big Bang Reincarnation 3.03
Chapter 3 – Searching For Signs Of Life 1.40
Chapter 4 – Blue Mist 1.53
Chapter 5 –The Cavern 3.43
Chapter 6 – Transformation (Pt. 1) 3.10
Chapter 7 – Transformation (Pt. 2) 2.12
Chapter 8 – Telepathic Routine 3.11
Chapter 9 – The Dance 3.59
Chapter 10 – Trust The Cosmos (Believe In The Universe) 3.47
Chatper 11 – Infinite List (Toss The Dice) 4.09
Chapter 12 – Epilogue 2.09

Music recorded, mixed and produced at Quatermass Sound Lab, London by Malcolm Catto and Jake Ferguson. Vocals recorded and mixed by Spaceman Patterson at Spaceman’s Studio, New York.
Executive Produced by Eothen Alapatt.
Music composed, arranged and performed by The Heliocentrics;
Lyrics composed and performed by Melvin Van Peebles.
Mastered by Guy Davie at Electric Mastering, London. Art direction by Errol Richardson. Photos by Eric Coleman.

All music arranged and performed by The Heliocentrics:
Malcolm Catto – Drums, Marimbula, Percussion, Additional Guitar and Piano
Jake Ferguson – Bass, Begena, Additional Guitar, Vibes and Piano
Jack Yglesias – Percussion, Kalimba, Flutes, Homemade Instruments and String Arrangements on “Collateral Damage”
Ade Owusu – Guitar, Thai Guitar, Effected Santur, Feedback and Koto
Ollie Parfitt – Piano, Keys and Electronic Effects
Tom Hodges – Electronica
Mike Burnham – Ring Mod Guitar on “Wrecking Ball”
Shabaka Hutchings – Bass Clarinet
Danny Keane – Cello
Raven – Violin

W/ Melvin Van Peebles – Vocals.

CD, LP, Deluxe LP and Digital. 2014. NA 5118 (Deluxe LP NA 4118).

Linked below: Egon’s newest Funk Archaeology post at Red Bull Music Academy’s website, this time offering a peek into the process behind the forthcoming Richard Marks anthology on Now-Again. Read about the records that this soul and funk great left behind after he passed away, and immerse yourself in the process that we live every day, trying to give unsung heroes their due props while they’re still with us.

The download this time around: a second cut from the rare Moon Song publishing demo LP referenced in the piece, an unheard soul ballad by an unknown group that we’ll almost certainly never find.

The New Series: Richard Marks’ Records – Egon’s Funk Archaeology at Red Bull Music Academy.
The Old Series: Egon’s Funk Archaeology at NPR.
Download: Unknown Artist: “Any Part I’ll Play”