In late 2017, Egon visited Gilles Peterson’s Brownswood Studios in London with Ed Wilson, record fiend and chef / owner of stellar restaurant – and frequent Madlib Medicine Show London tour stop – Brawn to chat about wine and music – and record some mixes together. Now the show – World Wine! – is available to listen to at the above link. Curious as to what your’e hearing? Check the tracklist below. MORE
The latest release in Now-Again’s Reserve Subscription series is Hunger – Strictly From Hunger: the band’s preferred version of the album, unedited, fuzz-guitar heavy late 60s psych-rock, restored and remastered from a rare test press. Bonus 2nd LP of the Public! Records version of the album available only to subscribers.
Shipping to subscribers now – if you missed the deluxe 2LP version there are still limited “Catch Me Up” subscriptions available… MORE
We used to share a special New Year’s carol from South Korean psych-legends He 5. But now we’re Zamrocking more frequently…so we’re digging a bit deeper and offering you a rather bizarre single by Zambian guitarist, singer and songwriter Paul Ngozi. This song, the b-side to his “Happy Christmas” single, is a departure from the hard-edged garage-psych of the Ngozi Family’s early recordings – but it’s the perfect companion for your New Year’s revelry. If you don’t mind crackle – imagine it’s the bubbles popping in your champagne – download the track below the link….
Download: Paul Ngozi: “Happy New Year”.
And, if you missed it:
Download: “He 5: “Auld Lang Syne”.”
Download: “Sweet Peace.”
By now, regular visitors to this site know that it’s somewhat of a Christmas/New Year’s tradition: we try to dig out some interesting record from the collection to share, in the hopes that you can somehow find a way to slip Paul Ngozi’s ode to the big fella above or the He 5’s stupendous Merry Christmas Psychedelic Sound (pictured above in a photo by Eilon Paz from his Dust and Grooves project) in between Bing Crosby and selections from John Denver and The Muppets’ A Christmas Together at your family’s get together.
So, this year, as we take a few days off to celebrate a year of good music, we’re sharing with you one of the weirdest, genius Christmas-adjacent songs we’ve ever heard. Honestly, we’ve no idea who performed this spiritual get down – it came via the esteemed drummer and producer Karriem Riggins, and has been an endless supply of holiday joy for us over the years.
But it now at our web store at Rappcats
The greatest never-issued Texas Funk LP – the legendary Timothy McNealy’s works, collected and officially reissued for the first time.
Extensive booklet detailing Timothy’s story, replete with never-published photos. Download card for WAV files included.
Dallas, Texas funk and soul singer, songwriter, producer and firebrand Timothy McNealy’s “Sagittarius Black” 45 was one of the first key “deep funk” records of the genre’s re-discovery period in the mid- to late-‘90s, when collectors and DJ’s did with the black America’s fertile late-‘60s and early ‘70s musical scenes what they had done prior with blues, jazz and rock. When that rarity was first rediscovered, no one could really explain it’s genesis: It was that rare thing, a record that came out of a specific era, but transcended it. Those who were entranced knew now how much McNealy had recorded, how many records he’d issued on his self-funded Shawn Records, or how good his music might be.
With this anthology – the first time that McNealy’s work has been collected and officially reissued – we now know the answer, and we know that McNealy’s music deserves to be emblematic of Dallas funk and soul in the same way that Texas’s other two largest cities – Houston, with the Kashmere Stage Band, and San Antonio, with Mickey and the Soul Generation – have their unique ambassadors, colored by those cities’ milieus.
McNealy’s recordings offer the breadth and depth that make a case for important idiosyncrasies, as they showcase a singular musical vision and his city’s vast talent, which has been prior documented on Now-Again releases such as Cold Heat and the South Dallas Pop Fest 1970 and Jazzman Records’ Texas Funk. McNealy’s banner recordings for Dallas, Texas’s best and brightest in that wonderful moment for American funk and soul music is worthy as an album, and as a testament to what is great about American music in general, and its creators’ abilities to think beyond the immediate.