Now-Again Records

Announcing: Revolutionary Spiritual Jazz – The Lightmen’s “Free As You Wanna Be.”

Exclusive pre-sale at our web store at Rappcats: The Lightmen’s Free As You Wanna Be

Revolutionary, spiritual jazz from Houston, reissued for the first time – the first in a series of four expanded reissues of drummer and bandleader Bubbha Thomas’s lauded catalog.

Extensive booklet detailing Bubbha and his band’s story, replete with never-published photos. Presented in both the issued stereo and previously unissued mono mixes as a double LP. Download card for WAV files and videos of 1970s performances included.

Drummer, bandleader and activist Bubbha Thomas had toured America with R&B revues, served as a session musician for Peacock and Back Beat Records, and played straight ahead jazz with legends before the political and social upheaval of the late 1960s led him to a path first charted by Coltrane. Free As You Wanna Be predates the deep-set, maverick jazz issued by the likes of Tribe and Strata East and is a harbinger of best of the 1970s jazz underground, a collective voice of resistance to the musical and cultural status quo.

This is the first time that Free As You Wanna Be has seen reissue, and it is presented in both the issued stereo and previously unissued mono mixes as a double LP. Bubbha and his band’s story is told in great detail by Houston music and cultural historian Lance Scott Walker (Houston Rap / Houston Rap Tapes) and Now-Again’s Eothen Alapatt, in a booklet that contains dozens of unpublished photographs.

All four of Bubbha’s 1970s albums will see reissue as expanded albums, with previously unreleased mixes, alternate and unreleased versions, once per quarter, through the end of 2018. Watch a primer of what’s to come below.

Announcing: Oh No Vs. Now-Again V. 3

Buy it now via our web store at Rappcats.

Now-Again presents its third library offering from the producer Oh No: heavy hip hop based on samples from the Now-Again Catalog.

Hip hop producer Oh No’s debut album for Now-Again was also the first in our music library series – and was one of our most successful exercises in creating modern “library music” for easy synchronization. For this, his third entry, Oh No combs through the vast array of Now-Again’s catalog – from American soul, funk and jazz to Zambian hard rock to Australian prog to Swedish psych – create a series of beats that range in mood and style and all contain Oh No’s trademark swagger. Fans of the variety of projects that Oh No is a part – from his Gangrene project with Alchemist to his production for the likes of Jedi Mind Tricks, Action Bronson and Talib Kweli – will be pleased with the variety of beats contained within.

This limited edition is CD is packaged in a “mini-LP” gatefold and is available in limited quantities. Once they’re gone, they’re gone.

Egon’s Funk 45 Mix – Temple Bar, Santa Monica – April 2003

We’re very close to announcing our Black Friday Record Store Day anthology and we’re giving you a hint at the artist whose music we’re featuring. His classic funk 45 is in this set Egon spun at Temple Bar in Santa Monica in 2003. More news soon!

Announcing: Rodinia – Ex Anima

Exclusive pre-sale at our webstore at Rappcasts. WW release date 09.08.

Electronic Krautrock in line with Cluster, Harmonia, Neu!, Popul Vuh from Jay Whitefield (Poets of Rhythm/Whitefield Brothers/Karl Hector & The Malcouns): the second Rodinia album.

Rodinia’s first album, Drumside/Dreamside, featured two, side-long suites, with synthesizers taking the fore on an overarching ambient approach (featuring over-dubbed reeds, drums and guitar, and self-made Moroccan field recordings introducing the project on its Drumsidewww.)

For Ex Anima, Rodinia has incorporated more of the mid-70s approach of Krautrock forebears Neu!, Cluster and Harmonia, with shorter, self contained songs. The result is winesome and exploratory, respectfully distanced from the past’s trappings while celebrating a musical spirit still very much alive and influential.

With original artwork by Jason Jagel.

Spiritual Jazz From Twin Brothers – Michael Cosmic and Phill Musra’s Albums, LP #7 in Now-Again Reserve

The latest release in Now-Again’s Reserve Subscription series is Michael Cosmic’s Peace In The World & Phill Musra Group’s Creator Spaces, packaged as a double LP, with a bonus 3rd LP of unreleased material by Cosmic, Musra and the World’s Experience Orchestra available only to subscribers. Shipping October 2017.

SUBSCRIBE: NOW-AGAIN RESERVE – there are a limited amount of “Catch Me Up” subscriptions still available to get you the entire run of NOW-AGAIN RESERVE releases.

Now-Again Reserve: Custom-made LP’s delivered once per quarter, presenting some of the rarest records in their respective genres in high quality LP format. Each release is produced with the direct participation of the artist.

Free improvisation, first touched on by messengers like John Coltrane, Sun Ra and Albert Ayler, gives us an exuberant maelstrom that rejoices in life while it shoves back at complex, unforgiving social-political environments. The 70s Boston underground brought twin brothers Phill Musra and Michael Cosmic together with Turkish-born drummer Hüseyin Ertunç; as a trio, and with other Boston jazzers (John Jamyll Jones of Worlds Experience Orchestra, the 2nd Now-Again Reserve Edition entry), the twins each privately issued an album. Potent mixes of spirituality, expressionist fire and electrified newness, these LPs are presented as the 7th entry in the Now-Again Reserve Edition, mastered from the original tapes.

LP 1 (front cover): Michael Cosmic – Peace in the World
LP 2 (back cover): Phill Musra Group – Creator Spaces
LP 3 – bonus record available only to subscribers: previously unreleased tracks by Cosmic, Musra and World’s Experience Orchestra.