Now-Again Records

Announcing: Now-Again 7″ Sure Shots – Round One. Download a free MP3 now…

A series of four, limited edition 7”s ranging from Deep American Funk and Soul, Zimbabwean Fuzz Funk, Zambian Proto-Punk, and Rare Disco. 500 copies of each 7” produced: not to be repressed. Download card for entire series included with each 7”.

This series is now available to our subscribers at Now-Again Deluxe at Drip.fm. We will offer a bundle option via our webstore at Rappcats very soon. Though they were delayed due to issues with our pressing plant, and the 7″s are now being shipped to stores – and will continue to be throughout December.

They are:

NA 7027 Richard Marks “I’m The Man For You”/Buddy Cantrell “You Ain’t No Good:” two of America’s most sought after deep funk/soul sides available on a 7” single for the first time. Originally issued on the tiny Atlanta imprint Tuska at the turn of 1970, both of these singles will appear on our forthcoming Richard Marks anthology Never Satisfied.

NA 7028 Stars of Liberty “Power To The People”/Eye Q “I Am Selfish:” two tracks from the 1970s Zimbabwean black rock scene. Stars of Liberty and Eye Q are two of the most fiery ensembles to release fuzzy singles in funky protest of Ian Smith’s oppressive Rhodesian regime. Now-Again will be delving head first into this pivotal part of the African rock and funk story with anthologies dedicated to the scene and its key players in 2015.

NA 7034 Chissy Zebby Tembo “I’m Not Made Of Iron/Fisherman:” two proto-punk Zamrock tracks from the drummer behind
Paul Ngozi’s Ngozi Family Band whose work is focus of ongoing investigation and reissue on Now-Again.. “Fisherman” was originally issued on Zebby Tembo’s lauded My Ancestors album. “I’m Not Made Of Iron,” from his untitled third LP, has never been released in any form.

NA 7035 Split Decision Band “Watching Out (45 Version)/Watching Out (Alternate Take):” one of the best independent disco songs ever released, out of the unlikely locale of Des Moines, Iowa, in the late 1970s. A reissue of the original 45 version of this song is paired here with an unreleased version, taken from an album that the band recorded but never released. We will issue it at Now-Again in full in 2015.

Download: Split Decision Band “Watching Out (45 Version)”

Out Now: Heliocentrics & Melvin Van Peebles “The Last Transmission”

In and shipping now via Rappcats and at all good record stores worldwide! 2 CD – Instrumentals included on bonus second disc; vocal LP; ltd. deluxe LP edition contains instrumentals on bonus disc. Download a free mp3 now!

Buy NOW at our webstore at rappcats.com!

It’s been a while – six years in fact! – since we first mentioned the collaboration between maverick filmmaker/songwriter/author and all around baadasssss Melvin Van Peebles and Malcolm Catto and Jake Ferguson’s Heliocentrics ensemble. We’re happy to finally set a street date and offer a sample of the madness to come.

The Last Transmission is an interplanetary space/love odyssey told in twelve chapters; it comes nearly ten years after Van Peebles’ appearance as the third member of Quasimoto on Stones Throw Records’ 2005 release The Further Adventure of Lord Quas. For the Heliocentrics, The Last Transmission represents their third Now-Again album, following Out There in 2007 and 13 Degrees of Reality in 2013.

Van Peebles makes for the Heliocentrics’ ideal foil: he did graduate work in astronomy in Holland in the 1950s and maintains an avid interest in cosmology. The Heliocentrics, as their name conveys, draw inspiration from both the philosophic leanings of the likes of Stephen Hawkings and interstellar mysteries, like those surrounding the Malian Dogon tribe’s knowledge of the Sirius B star hundreds of years before it was discovered. Their music is as indebted to Sun Ra’s interstellar jazz as it is inspired by psychedelia’s spiritual expanse.

The Last Transmission, presented as a vocal album and an expanded instrumental selection on a bonus disc, can be taken as both the band’s interpretation of Van Peebles’ poem and a musical voyage inspired by Van Peebles’ vivid imagery. The band considers it their defining work, the result of more than a decade of playing and recording together. They’ve found a voice as a band, one that meshes with Van Peebles,’ as he weaves an intergalactic “Rime of the Ancient Mariner.”

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.

Download a free MP3 from the album – the instrumental version of “The Cavern” – below.

Download: “Chapter 5 – The Cavern (Instrumental)”

In And Shipping: Ngozi Family “Day of Judgement”

In and shipping at our webstore at Rappcats: Ngozi Family’s Day of Judgement proto-punk and garage Zamrock! Hardbound casebook CD and digital out now, ltd. deluxe LP edition w/ bonus disc with rare 7″ tracks shipping later this month. Out worldwide 08.26 – download a free mp3 below!

Day of Judgement, as detailed in an earlier post, will see release as a hardbound casebook CD, digital album and in LP form. A limited deluxe edition of the LP – limited to 1000 copies – will contain a bonus disc which collects four songs from rare Ngozi Family 7″ singles, issued contemporaneously with Day of Judgement.

Day of Judgement will be available to our subscribers at Now-Again Deluxe two weeks prior to the album’s release date. Download a free MP3 from the album – the devastating “Hi Babe” – below and see more images of our CD package.

Download: “Hi Babe”
Buy: Ngozi Family Day of Judgement at Rappcats.