The first in a series of four, limited edition 7”s ranging from Deep American Funk and Soul, Zimbabwean Fuzz Funk, Zambian Proto-Punk, and Rare Disco. Essential funky listening.
Download: Now-Again 7″ Sureshots Round One
Category: News
Heliocentrics & Melvin Van Peebles – The Last Transmission
The Last Transmission is an interplanetary space/love odyssey told by the maverick Melvin Van Peebles in twelve chapters. In between producer/drummer Malcolm Catto’s thunderous syncopation and producer/bassist Jake Ferguson’s bellowing bass lines, amidst the analog electronics and atmospheric interference naturally accorded by their organic analogue process, Van Peebles’ voice floats in and out, spectral in its tone, complete in its conviction in the unfathomable sense that life’s eruption in the cosmic expanse made, and in love’s ability to transform and transcend death. Also included: instrumentals.
Download: Heliocentrics & Melvin Van Peebles – The Last Transmission
“These Are The J.B.’s” – Second Edition On Sale Now!
By popular demand – a second edition of the lost James Brown/Bootsy Collins album
Buy the album at our webstore at rappcats.com – ships immediately!
We quickly sold out of the first run of the J.B.’s These Are The J.B.’s album. So fast, in fact, that we were inundated with requests from funk fans who couldn’t fathom that a record that was meant to sell for $25 wasn’t available in their local store and was appearing on the secondary market for between $35 and $50.
They asked us to remedy the situation and we did.
We’re pleased to announce that we have produced a second edition of the album in production. Copies are now in stock and shipping via our Rappcats webstore.
Here are the differences between the first and second editions.
– The first edition comes in an old-school, thick-cardboard, “tip-on” LP sleeve – the second edition comes in a regular, “new-style” LP sleeve.
– The color way has changed for the second variation (see above for the way the second variation will appear).
– The second edition is labeled “second edition” in the legal line on the back.
All else remains the same: same quality of wax, same booklet, same funk. But we wanted to make sure the folks who bought the first edition had something special and there would be no confusion between the two issues.
(Re)Announcing – Our Nigerian Fuzz-Funk Anthology
Now-Again, in conjunction with Uchenna Ikonne (the man behind the award-winning William Onyeabor anthology on Luaka Bop and the perennially-dope Comb & Razor blog) and with help from Sound Way’s Miles Cleret and New-Zealand based psych-zealot Heavyfuzz, can now announce that we are “this” close to finishing the anthology of the best Nigerian psych-fuzz-funk tracks from the country’s rock era of the early to mid 1970s. The anthology will tell the story of rock in the wake of the Nigerian Civil War and trace its genesis in the highlife scene of the 1950s through its demise in the 1980s.
Yes, we’ve been working on this anthology for going on seven years. But, as we noted back in 2009, this compilation is officially licensed through the bands themselves – a first for a Nigerian comp of this sort, so far as we can tell.
Included in our ever expanding track list: selections from The Hykkers, The Hygrades, Tirogo, Faces, Forge Your Own Chains’ The Strangers, P.R.O, Question Mark, Warhead Constriction and Wrinkar Experience. Wrinkar’s leader, Ginger Forcha (pictured above with some adoring fans in the early 70s), licensed us his breathtaking “Ballad Of A Sad Young Woman.” You’ll have to wait till our comp comes out (later this year – yes, we promise you) to check that tune. In the meantime, we’re posting Wrinkars’s biggest hit, “Money To Burn,” here.
More information – format(s), full track list(s) and, yes, a release date coming soon.
Download: Wrinkar Experience “Money To Burn”
Announcing: Fabiano do Nascimento “Dança dos Tempos”
Fabiano do Nascimento’s debut album: folkloric Brasilian/Afro-Brasilian music taken into the future. Featuring Airto Moreira. Out now, download a free track below!
Buy the album at our webstore at rappcats.com – ships immediately!
Dança dos Tempos is the debut album from thrilling, young Brasilian guitarist Fabiano do Nascimento, 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.
Download: Fabiano do Nascimento “Forro Brasil”