Before releasing their lone self-titled debut album, one of the most rare rock records to be released in Europe in the 1970s, Paternoster provided the soundtrack for a film that could only have been made while the psychedelic movement was still in its first wave. The group’s first recordings presented here are the soundtrack for Herbert Holbaís 1971 hippie sci-fi film Die Ersten Tage (The First Days), screened at the Berlin International Film Festival, and interestingly played on Austrian TV in August of that year. The material issued here is the genesis of Paternoster and set the stage for the release of one of the world’s great rock albums with their self-titled debut the following year. The music has been painstakingly transferred directly from master tapes

TRACK LISTING

SIDE A: Cues 1-15.
SIDE B: Cues 16-30

The Greatest High School Band Of All Time Plays Hard Soul, Funk And Jazz On This Double LP. The word is out The Kashmere Stage Band was the greatest high school band - ever. The bandleader at Kashmere High School, Conrad Johnson, transformed a bunch of rough-hewn Houston high schoolers into a band that could compete with any in the nation – professional, or otherwise. Forget high school bands, we're talking about sixteen year old kids who would give the JBs a run for their money! The Kashmere Stage Band released a total of eight albums and three 45s on Johnson’s Kram label. The band’s best tracks are collected on Texas Thunder Soul 1968-1974

TRACK LISTING

A1. Boss City
A2. Burning Spear
A3. Take Five
A4. Super Bad
A5. Keep Doing It
A6. Thunder Soul
B1. Do You Dig It, Man?
B2. Headwiggle
B3. Do Your Thing
B4. Scorpio
C1. Thank You
C2. Al’s Tune
C3. All Praises
C4. Shaft
D1. Kashmere
D2. $$ Kash Register $$
D3. Zero Point – Pt.1 & Pt. 2 (45 Version)
D4. Getting It Out Of My System

"Ykytu" is Brasilian guitarist Fabiano do Nascimento’s fourth album for Now-Again Records. Produced by Nascimento’s longtime engineer Jason Hiller, this album is do Nascimento’s first solo guitar album and, like his previous album, Preludio, is reliant on do Nascimento’s own compositions, with a little help from like-minded musical travelers. In keeping with the trajectory of his previous albums, including Dança dos Tempos and Tempo dos Mestres, Ykytu follows folkloric Brasilian music, Brasilian jazz, bossa-nova and samba as experienced through the mind and able fingers of an expansive musician, this time in a minimalist, meditative manner. “Even though this album is a bit experimental and even abstract at times, It is meant to be a calming and easy listening experience,” do Nascimento offers.

“I choose to keep the songs and arrangements intentionally very bare and stripped down. Just adding few layers and colors here and there.” The album came together during the Covid-19 pandemic, but one hears anything but isolation in Ykytu’s grooves. Do Nascimento performed the album almost entirely with a Strimon Timeline pedal, with a few loops and overdubs, and the result is a full-fledged, if quiet and subtle, conversation Do Nascimento has with himself, as he ruminates about this stage in his life, in his musical journey, and his music’s place in the world. Ykytu means "wind" in the indigenous Brazilian Guarani language. In his own way, as he was quarantined in Los Angeles, Do Nascimento has succeded in journeying outwards, in heeding the call of the open world. At the same time, he has remained true to the spirit and calling of his forebears, hearing their whispers, amplifying them, augmenting them, and allowing them to flow outwards. “...Based in Los Angeles, a continent away from his homeland, Nascimento draws from a deep love of Brazilian rhythms and pays homage to his mentors…His music is beautiful and transcendent and… at this time and place – a balm” – KCRW

TRACK LISTING

A1. Curumn
A2. Meditacao
A3. Novo Dia
A4. Noite
A5. Stalgmites
A6. Ykytu

B1. Pelas Ruas
B2. Alta Paz
B3. Corrida
B4. Flower Of Life
B5. Planalto
B6. Rio Tapajos

Morgen’s self-titled 1969 album is the sole release by the NYC band led by songwriter / vocalist Steve Morgen. Now-Again’s Reserve edition of the release pairs the album with previously-unreleased songs and alternate takes to create a definitive double LP reissue of the album. CD edition features a third CD of instrumentals. Vinyl contains Download card for WAV files for all vinyl tracks and additional bonus tracks. That casual listeners have never heard of this late 60s masterpiece is by any measure a musical injustice. Morgen offers a portal to a dream space where the expansive, artful touches never prevent the band members from pummeling their instruments like their lives depended on it. Paul Major, perhaps the first Morgen evangelist, likens the album’s immediacy to that of Hendrix, stating “Morgen was one of the records that came closest to giving me that same kind of thrill on that level.

It blew my mind!” Geoffrey Weiss, Now-Again’s nomination for World’s Greatest Record Collector, states “…unlike 95% of the rare psychedelic records that people celebrate it sounds like they were good musicians who were well rehearsed and had worked out this sound very intentionally. Morgen has a kind of power – you really can’t compare it to anything.” The band, and Morgen’s arc were – cribbing Kurt Vonnegut – unstuck in time. It took 50 years for Steve Morgen’s belief, for instance, that an alternate, superior version of his stellar “Purple” was recorded in 1968. It sees release here, alongside other takes of songs from the album, including a version of “Beggin’ Your Pardon (Ms. Joan)” on which Morgen’s fiery guitarist Murray Shiffrin sings lead and songs the band recorded as possibilities for the album, before settling on their dense, hazy vision and etching an indelible entry into the psychedelic canon. The vinyl set is rounded out with the inclusion of extensive liner notes by Jeff “Chairman” Mao as well as never-before seen photos and ephemera in an oversized book. Download card for WAV files for all vinyl tracks and additional bonus tracks

TRACK LISTING

A1. Welcome To The Void
A2. Of Dreams
A3. Beggin’ Your Pardon (Ms. Joan)
A4. Eternity In Between
B1. Purple
B2. She’s The Nitetime
B3. Love.. Unreleased And Alternate Takes:
C1. Purple
C2. She’s The Nitetime
C3. Love (Alternate Take/Mix)
C4. Beggin’ Your Pardon (Ms. Joan)
D1. Purple D2. She’s The Nitetime
D3. Welcome To The Void (Alternate Mix)
D4. All I Know D5. Everything’s Gone
D6. Woke Up This Morning

“Electrified by a diet of James Brown, the Stones and Deep Purple, WITCH were the stadium-filling kings of 70s Zamrock.” MOJO.. This landmark recording from Now-Again’s comprehensive overview of Zambia’s premier garage-, psych-, prog-, funk-,afro-rock ensemble WITCH, We Intend To Cause Havoc! Is now available in a never before seen color variant. The audio is nigh-perfect – restored and remastered from the original master tapes. WITCH’s musical arc is contained to a five year span and, in retrospect, is a logical one. The band’s first two, self-produced albums - released in unison with the birth of the commercial Zambian recording industry – are exuberant experiments in garage rock, and are as influenced by the Rolling Stones as they are James Brown. In The Past, their second album, is the perfect follow-up for anyone exposed to the WITCH band through their landmark Introduction

TRACK LISTING

A1. Living In The Past
A2. Young Lady
A3. Chance
A4. It’s Alright
A5. I’ve Been Away

B1. I Like The Way I Am
B2. The Only Way
B3. Smiling Face
B4. She Is Mine
B5. Mushed Potatoe

Ayalew Mesfin stands aside the likes of Mulatu Astake, Mahmoud Ahmed, Hailu Mergia and Alemayehu Eshete as a legend of 1970s Ethiopia. Mesfin’s music is some of the funkiest to arise from this unconquerable East African nation. Mesfin’s recording career, captured in nearly two dozen 7” singles and numerous reel-to-reel tapes, shows the strata of the most fertile decade in Ethiopia’s 20th century recording industry, when records were pressed constantly by both independent upstarts and corporate behemoths, even if they were only distributed within the confines of this East African nation. Though Mesfin was forced underground by the Derg regime that took control of Ethiopia in 1974, he has returned almost 50 years later with this triumphant set albums the first time that his music has been presented in this form. These albums give us a chance to discover a rare and beautiful moment in music history, in anthologies built from Mesfin’s uber-rare 7” single releases and from previously unreleased recordings taken from master tapes. Che Belew gives us a chance to discover a rare & beautiful moment in music history, in an anthology built from his uber-rare 7” single releases. Contains an oversized 11” x 11” 16 page book that tells the story of modern Ethiopian music and Mesfin’s role within it. 

TRACK LISTING

A1. Libe Menta Hone (My Divided Heart)
A2. Hedech Gara Zura (She Left Across The Mountain)
A3. Tereterkush Betam (I Suspect You Are Unfaithful)
A4. Harrar Dire-Diwa (Harrar Dire-Diwa)
A5. Yecew Neger (Amazed By Humanity)

B1. Konjo Lidge Nat (She's A Beautiful Girl)
B2. Yetembelel-Loga (Tall And Graceful)
B3. Che Belew (March Forward)
B4. Ho Bilo Hede (He Went Marching)
B5. Zebeder (Mesmerizing)

Ayalew Mesfin stands aside the likes of Mulatu Astake, Mahmoud Ahmed, Hailu Mergia and Alemayehu Eshete as a legend of 1970s Ethiopia. Mesfin’s music is some of the funkiest to arise from this unconquerable East African nation. Mesfin’s recording career, captured in nearly two dozen 7” singles and numerous reel-to-reel tapes, shows the strata of the most fertile decade in Ethiopia’s 20th century recording industry, when records were pressed constantly by both independent upstarts and corporate behemoths, even if they were only distributed within the confines of this East African nation.

Though Mesfin was forced underground by the Derg regime that took control of Ethiopia in 1974, he has returned almost 50 years later with this triumphant set albums the first time that his music has been presented in this form. These albums give us a chance to discover a rare and beautiful moment in music history, in anthologies built from Mesfin’s uber-rare 7” single releases and from previously unreleased recordings taken from master tapes. Good Aderegechegn gives us a chance to discover a rare & beautiful moment in music history, in an anthology built from his uber-rare 7” single releases. Vinyl Contains an oversized 11” x 11” 16 page book that tells the story of modern Ethiopian music and Mesfin’s role within it

TRACK LISTING

A1. Hasabe (My Worries)
A2. Ewedish Neber (I Used To Love You)
A3. Tezetash Rekik (Memories Of You)
A4. Endet Liyesh (How Can I See You)
A5. Ekul Teramedu (Walk As One)

B1. Good Aderegechegn (Blindsided By Love)
B2. Wubeet (Beautiful)
B3. Yewefe Ber Abeba (Like A Beautiful Bird)
B4. Sak Sak Beyelegni (Smile For Me)……. 

First Ever CD Issue For This Recording From James Brown’s Backing Band: The Bootsy Collins-lead JB’s. This album is the Rosetta Stone of funk’s dominant idioms, yet its existence has barely been a rumor. In 1970 James Brown perfectly captured a definitive moment in modern music when he ordered Bootsy Collins into the studio to record the tracks that would be test pressed on King Records as These Are The J.B.’s. This album is the epitome of funk music, Brown’s innovation that influenced everything that came after it, from Afro-beat to disco to hip-hop. And if there is any funk ensemble as influential as Brown’s, in the post-“Cold Sweat” musical landscape, it’s the Parliament/Funkadelic contingent. Those two streams, as Grammy Winning James Brown historian Alan Leeds details in this album’s liner notes, converged for the first time here.

This link between Brown’s funk and all that followed features Bootsy and his young band running through twelve-minute instrumental take of Marva Whitney’s “It’s My Thing,” replete with blues chord changes, alongside interpretations of the Meters, Kool and the Gang and none other than Jimi Hendrix. This is a young band’s James Brown-turned-on-his-head style of funk that they nail in a one-minute vamp that pre-dates their obscure but important work as the Houseguests ensemble and embodies the essence of the psychedelic-flavored music that would propel them into the orbit of George Clinton and his mothership, where they poked cosmic holes in funk’s polyrhythmic ozone layer in the mid-1970s. There are only two extant copies of the original King Records test press LP of These Are The J.B.’s.

The first commercial issue of this album, was overseen by Now-Again’s Egon alongside Leeds and Universal Music Group’s James Brown expert Harry Weinger. It was mastered specifically for vinyl by Elysian Master’s Dave Cooley from the original two-track stereo master that James Brown and his engineer Ron Lenhoff delivered to production forty-four years ago.

TRACK LISTING

01. These Are The JBs (Part 1 & 2)
02. I’ll Ze
03. The Grunt (Part 1 & 2)
04. When You Feel It, Grunt If You Can

Prelúdio is the third album from the thrilling, young Brasilian guitarist Fabiano do Nascimento, and once again it's on Now-Again Records. Produced by Mario Caldato, Jr. and Luther Russell and engineered and mixed by Caldato and Jason Hiller, this album features do Nascimento’s longtime drummer Ricardo “Tiki” Pasillas. It is the first album of solely do Nascimento’s own compositions and, like his previous albums Dança dos Tempos and Tempo dos Mestres, follows folkloric Brasilian music, Brasilian jazz, bossa-nova and samba as experienced through the mind and able fingers of an expansive musician, combing 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.

Do Nascimento was born into a musical family, from lineage that stretches back to his great-grand-fat her Ladario Teixeira, a blind saxophonist who contributed to the re-creation of the instrument by adding more keys to the older incarnation of the instrument in the early 20th century. He was born in Rio de Janeiro and grew up there and in Sao Paulo, where he found inspiration in his uncle, the late Lúcio Nascimento, bassist and composer in Leny Andrade's band Bom de Três. While he came from a musical pedigree, he’s largely self-taught, largely in the service of an overarching mission to showcase the folkloric music of his home country as he continue to develop possibilities for language of the guitar itself. His studies ramped up after he moved to Los Angeles in 2001. His first champion was Aloe Blacc, who worked with do Nascimento over the years, including his work on his debut album Shine Through for Stones Throw Records. His collaborators now include Madlib, multi-instrumentalist Sam Gandel, Innovative Leisure chanteuse Claude Fontaine and legendary Brasilian percussionist, bandleader, songwriter and catalyst Airto Moreira.

Moreiera states that Nascimento is "Brazilian but (his mind is) from a place in Brazil that is not common. Fortunately, we still have some musicians who like to play music and who like to touch the instrument and who like that energy! You see, because that’s the most important thing in music. The energy. That’s why I love to play live. And that’s why I’m playing with Fabiano.” The Brazilian guitarist’s third album for Now-Again, featuring 10 original compositions. Shades of Baden Powell, Hermeto Pascoal, Carioca, Tenorio Jr., Rosinha de Valença. Produced by Luther Russell and Mario C. Featuring Ricardo “Tiki” Pasillas.

STAFF COMMENTS

Patrick says: I have my good friend and musical mentor Jason Boardman to thank for tipping me on Fabiano Do Nascimento when his first LP landed. Now on his third LP his emotive, rhythmic and expressive playing has somehow matured and intensified. A gorgeous LP.

TRACK LISTING

A1. De Rio A Tapajós
A2. Partiu
A3. Mente Azul
A4. Rainha
A5. Tributo
A6. Malandro
B1. Amanhecer
B2. Ilhas
B3. Prelúdio Amazônico
B4. Trem-bala 

Sho is Funky Down Here and The Grodeck Whipperjenny are a pair of albums that are the result of an unlikely but highly productive musical relationship between James Brown, a superstar at the creative and commercial peaks of his long career, and David Matthews, a then young arranger-musician whose limited professional experience had little or nothing to do with the funk and soul of his collaborator. The Grodeck Whipperjenny. A psychedelic classic, created by his James Brown’s bandleader David Matthews, the first album issued on Brown’s famed People imprint. As progressive as it is funky, this album was issued in tandem with another Matthews project issued under Brown’s name – Sho Is Funky Down Here. One of the deepest albums in the Brown catalog, its story is finally told. Both albums were lacquered directly from the original master tapes at Capitol Studios. This is the first official reissue of both of these rare titles. Each album contains an extensive booklet with full annotation, liner notes by Brown historian Alan Leeds and never-before-published photos

TRACK LISTING

01. Sitting Here On A Tongue
02. Wonder If
03. Why Can't I Go Back
04. Conclusions
05. You're Too Young
06. Put Your Thing On Me
07. Inside Or Outside
08. Evidence For The
09. Existence Of The Unconscious

THIS IS A RECORD STORE DAY 2019 EXCLUSIVE AND WILL BE AVAILABLE INSTORE ON SATURDAY APRIL 13th ON A FIRST COME FIRST SERVED BASIS, LIMITED TO ONE PER PERSON. IF THERE ARE ANY REMAINING COPIES THEY WILL BE MADE AVAILABLE ONLINE AT 12.01AM SATURDAY APRIL 20th.

First issued in 1971. Available digitally, CD is out of print. Vinyl has been out of print since at least the mid-90s. 3000 only worldwide. Sho is Funky Down Here and The Grodeck Whipperjenny are a pair of albums that are the result of an unlikely but highly productive musical relationship between James Brown, a superstar at the creative and commercial peaks of his long career, and David Matthews, a then young arranger-musician whose limited professional experience had little or nothing to do with the funk and soul of his collaborator. James Brown’s psychedelic album, created by his then-bandleader David Matthews, and issued at the same time as Matthews’ classic The Grodeck Whipperjenny. Underground, fuzzy, rambling psych-funk. The genesis of Brown’s “Talking Loud And Saying Nothing,” a 1990s hip hop sample staple, informing A Tribe Called Quest, Large Professor, Brand Nubian and others. Lacquered directly from the original master tapes at Capitol Studios. This is the first official reissue of both of this rare titles. Contains an extensive booklet with full annotation, liner notes by Brown historian Alan Leeds and never-before-published photos. Tracks : A Side 1. Sho Is Funky Down Here 2. Don't Mind 3. Bob Scoward B Side 1. Just Enough Room For Storage 2. You Mother You 3. Can Mind.

Kraut-jazz-rock produced by JJ Whitefield (Poets of Rhythm/Whitefield Brothers). The long-standing band’s third album. Featuring Marja Burchard (Embryo). Download card for WAV files included. It’s been over ten years since Karl Hector and the Malcouns’ Sahara Swing saw release on Now-Again in 2008. The album swung with influences from across the African diaspora and set the stage for a cult, but influential following. Hermes designer Christophe Lemaire picked tracks from Karl Hector and The Malcouns as amongst his favorites in the Now-Again catalog, and included them on his Where Are You From anthology. Festival promoters intrigued by the possibility of resurrecting the careers of once forgotten African mavericks – from Ghana’s Ebo Taylor to the progenitors of Zambia’s Zamrock scene – brought Hector and crew across Europe playing festivals for ecstatic fans.

Producer JJ Whitefield even founded an Afro-Rock band, Johnny!, with Taylor’s son Henry. Unstraight Ahead, their sophomore release from 2014, found the band exploring territories even outside of the expansive scope of Sahara Swing: West African sounds of Ghana and Mali met the East African sounds of Mulatu Astatke’s Ethiopian jazz, tied together with the groove heavy experimentalism of The Malcouns’ 70s Krautrock godfathers: Can, of course, but also more obscure and equally adventurous groups like Agitation Free, Ibliss and Tomorrow’s Gift. “We look to Middle Eastern funk and psychedelic fusions, and to various ethnic records for sound and phrasing,” Whitefield stated at the time of Unstraight Ahead’s release. “We’re trying to combine the global experimentalism of Krautrock with the backbeat of funk.” Non Ex Orbis, the band’s third studio album, digs deeper into the Krautrock history embedded deep in the soil of their native Munch - three of the most influential bands of the 1970s experimental German rock scene spurng from there: Amon Düül, Popol Vuh and Embryo.

Influenced by these musical heroes, Whitefield shapes a sound that takes the experimental approach of the classic Krautrock era and slides between beat-heavy drone and spacey, prog-rock suites. Marja Burchard, daughter of Embryo mastermind Christian Burchard, fronts the group on keyboard, vibraphone and other-worldly vocals. Al Markovic joins longstanding Malcoun Zdenko Curilija to round out the ensemble. Non Ex Orbis, read by Whitefield and the band as Out Of This World, symbolizes an innocent way of composing and improvising music, free from the influences of our contemporary environment, preserving a childlike way of hearing sounds in their unfiltered purity. “Some will classify this as a retro, but for the band it simply is a form of creating, Whitefield states. “We’re drawing from an established musical vocabulary which was popular at a time in Germany, when underground musical culture had its creative peak”. 

TRACK LISTING

A1. Non Ex Orbis
A2. Crawling Through Your Mind
A3. Hymnin5 (Extended)
A4. Stossgebet
B1. Asteroid
B2. Inhale / Exhale
B3. Mother Seletta
B4. Dekagon