Tag: Zambian Psych Rock

Out Now: Musi-O-Tunya “Give Love To Your Children” – Grab a Free mP3!

Funk, Psych-Rock, and Fuzz-Guitar-lead Afrobeat from Zambia’s groundbreaking band. Contains extensive booklet with liner notes, an exclusive interview with drummer Brian Chengala and guitarists Rikki Ilionga and Wayne Barnes, photos and ephemera. Limited deluxe edition LP contains bonus disc with rare 7” tracks, never reissued on vinyl. Out now!

Finally! The legendary Zamrock band’s second album and rare 7” tracks presented a an album. We can only describe Give Love To Your Children as a medley of Funk, Psych-Rock, and Fuzz-Guitar-lead Afrobeat from this groundbreaking Zambian band. As you’ll read in our extensive booklet this album follows Now-Again’s first foray into the Zamrock genre, Rikki Ililonga and Musi-O-Tuyna’s Dark Sunrise.

Dark Sunrise hadn’t even entered production when we became aware of Musi-O-Tunya’s post-Ililonga trajectory, and its uniqueness in the Zamrock landscape. It is the corollary to Ililonga’s story. And now, that story can be told, and the music can be heard, thanks to the participation of Ililonga, Chengala and Barnes, who color the creation and release of Give Love To Your Children. This album’s grooves hold the last, sustained shouts from one of the first Zamrock ensembles: Musi-O-Tunya exploded at the height of the Zamrock movement, scattering its members everywhere, with only this last, fiery artifact to remember them by.

Download a track from the album below.

Download: Musi-O-Tunya “When I’m Gone”
Buy: Musi-O-Tunya Give Love To Your Children on Rappcats.
If you missed it: Rikki Ililonga and Musi-O-Tunya Dark Sunrise.

Posted in NewsFeb. 3, 2014

Update: Ngozi Family Anthology

We know you’ve been waiting patiently for our Paul Ngozi and The Ngozi Family anthology – it’s certainly been one of the most complicated and intensive investigations we’ve done of one group’s music, and it looks like we’ll have it out in early to mid 2014. So, as a primer, we’re presenting you with a selection of songs from one of our favorite albums from Ngozi’s classic period – 45,000 Volts – available in two weeks via Now-Again Deluxe at Drip.fm. In this four track sampler, you’ll get a feel for where Ngozi headed with his third album: the template for his sound had changed, as he’d found a polished-yet-rugged middleground; he’d encompassed punk, funk and hard rock into his sound; he’d started hinting at the direction his later 70s albums would head, with tracks that can only be described as Zamrock-meets-Kalindula hybrids.

Subscribe Now: Now-Again Deluxe at Drip.fm.

Posted in NewsSep. 10, 2013

Announcing: Salty Dog, deep fuzz and folk Zamrock via Strawberry Rain

An EP compiled from Strawberry Rain’s essential Zamrock reissue of Salty Dog via our subscription service, Now-Again Deluxe!

We’re pleased that we were able to broker a license for our friends at Strawberry Rain Records – they behind the Benny Soebardja Lizard Years anthology that we told you about last year – for this important Zamrock album from bandleader and graphic designer Norman Muntemba.

According to an interview Strawberry Rain’s Jason Connoy conducted with Muntemba, we find that Salty Dog was a three piece, modeled after the Jimi Hendrix Experience. Their name? Well, it wasn’t a reference to Procol Harum: Muntemba wanted to base the band around the concept of the force of life, so Salty Dog was chosen: Zambian slang for sperm. Their self titled album was the eighth release on the Zambezi imprint, the same label that released WITCH’s landmark Lazy Bones!! But unlike Lazy Bones!!, Salty Dog is one of the most obscure Zambian titles from the era – a rarity amongst rarities. This has been a shame for aficionados, as the album is a beautiful combination of psychedelic, blues and folk songs, all with a Zamrock twist, and with many songs sung in English.

As a bonus for their release, Strawberry Rain pressed up the non-lp single that was released before the album: “Sunday Morning Sunshine.” This release is limited edition and comes in a handsome paste on cover, full of photos and liner notes written by the band. We here at Now-Again are happy to present this preview of the album as an EP of our four favorite songs. If you like what you hear, go out and support our pals at Strawberry Rain and help them on their mission to release some of the best, lost music from the global canon.

Subscribe Now: Now-Again Deluxe at Drip.fm.
More Info: Strawberry Rain’s Website.

Posted in NewsJul. 22, 2013

Announcing: WITCH’s Jagari Chanda “Kwamununga”

WITCH’s bandleader Jagari Chanda’s first recordings in over thirty five years – digital 7″ available now at Now-Again Deluxe!

This is a special release: WITCH’s bandleader Jagari Chanda’s first recordings since Zamrock’s most beloved band after their release of the Including Janet album! They were recorded in L.A. when he traveled to the USA for the first time to play a private show that we threw in conjunction with Urban Outfitters in Hollywood.

How, you ask? Well, it went something like this: our pal, the producer Luther Russell (you’ll be hearing more about him later this year), is as big of a WITCH fan as is Patrick Bailey, the guitar and bass player who assembled the band to learn and play WITCH’s Zamrock classics in L.A. (and a part of the great Jungle Fire and Ethio Cali ensembles).

Jagari had an idea for a song he wanted to record – a Zamrock take on a Zambian standard about – you guessed it – witchcraft. He met up with Russell and Bailey, recorded his ideas straight to tape (with Russell on drums and Bailey on bass), and rounded out the session with some acoustic songs that had been banging around in his head.

And then he went back to Zambia. Never to be seen in America again. Well, not quite. Madlib invited him up to play at the San Francisco Sounds of Zamrock Madlib Medicine Show extravaganza and Russell, overjoyed to be able to present Jagari with a most special gift, went back to his studio with Bailey and some friends and overdubbed the parts Jagari had told him he wanted to hear in the final arrangements. We presented the songs to Jagari in S.F., and he was overjoyed. And, well, we were too. So we’re giving these songs away to our subscribers at Now-Again Deluxe.

Subscribe Now: https://drip.fm/nowagain

Posted in NewsJun. 18, 2013

Friday May 3rd: Zamrock Live In Hollywood feat. WITCH’s Jagari Chanda

Now-Again and Urban Outfitters present: Zamrock Live! in Los Angeles; WITCH’s Emmanuel “Jagari” Chanda is coming from Zambia to Los Angeles to perform his band’s world-psych-rock classics in America for the first time!

We here at Now-Again have championed the 70s rock scene that originated in Zambia – Zamrock – for years now, releasing anthologies of the giants of the scene: WITCH, Rikki Ililonga, Musi-O-Tunya, Paul Ngozi and Chrissy Zebby Tembo. As we ramp up our undertakings to document the lost gems from this isolated yet genius movement in 2013 – we’ve already mentioned the Paul Ngozi and the Ngozi Family and Musi-O-Tunya Give Love To Your Children albums – we are proud to partner up with Urban Outfitters to bring WITCH’s lead singer and bandleader Emmanuel “Jagari” Chanda – the only member of the ensemble still living – to Los Angeles to perform the band’s world-psych-rock music. While Zamrock Live! has been making the festival circuit in Europe, this is the first time it will be performed in America: at Bazaaaaar, May 3rd, Hollywood, at Space 15 Twenty.

Space is limited so RSVP quick and show up early. They’ll hit the stage at 8.

Posted in NewsApr. 26, 2013