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Scott Walker (Houston Rap / Houston Rap Tapes) and Now-Again’s Eothen Alapatt, in a booklet that contains dozens of unpublished photographs. http://www.rappcats.com/shop/lightmen/

Free As You Wanna Be (Stereo)

The Lightmen - Free As You Wanna Be (Stereo) - Free As You Wanna Be

Free As You Wanna Be (Mono)

The Lightmen - Free As You Wanna Be (Mono) - Free As You Wanna Be

Ngozi Family's New Year's Celebration....

Ngozi Family - Happy New Year

Revolutionary, spiritual jazz from Houston, reissued for the first time – the second in a series of four expanded reissues of drummer and bandleader Bubbha Thomas’s lauded catalog. http://www.rappcats.com/shop/fancypants/

Fancy Pants

The Lightmen - Ashie (Stereo) - Fancy Pants

Fancy Pants (Mono)

The Lightmen - Ashie (Mono) - Fancy Pants

Jazz at The University of Utah

Gol e Gandon

Bonus Disc

The Lightmen Plus One - All Praises To Allah (Alternate Version) - Energy Control Center

Die Ersten Tages - Jason's Master Refs, Side B

Paternoster Die Ersten Tage Cue 22

DET Edit - Sides A - Jason's Master Refs 1

Paternoster – Die ersten Tage Cue 16

Egon – Neon Sunset Interview on 3RRR FMN, Australia

Contagion Theory

Key & Cleary - What It Takes To Live

Al Manfredi, born to a musical family of Italian immigrants in the small SoCal beach town of San Clemente, found regional success with his garage rock band Lost &amp; Found while he was still a teenager. The tragic deaths of two of the band’s members in the late 60s shook Manfredi to his core, and he gave up on the band scene completely, retreating to his family’s music store, and working on music in private, multi-tracking demos of growing prowess on primitive recording equipment.

In 1973 he chose six of his favorite songs and exactingly produced and recorded an album, which he custom-pressed in minute quantities. His dreams of securing a record deal faded, but he spent the rest of his life recording music, surfing, bringing children into the world, and battling alcohol and drug abuse.

This little-known West Coast rock masterpiece was rediscovered celebrated by Acid Archives founder Patrick Lundborg and others around the time that Manfredi died in 1995. This version of the album, overseen by Manfredi’s son, the hip hop producer Exile, and with Manfredi’s story told by Ugly Things’ founder Mike Stax, presents the complete package of an incredible lost and found artist. Contains the album, as originally issued, on side A with unreleased music on side B. Bonus 2nd LP – available only to subscribers – contains alternate takes, demo versions and the two, rare garage rock tracks from the solitary Lost &amp; Found 7" . Extensive, photo-filled booklet documents the history of the band, their mission, and their arc. Download card included, for WAV files, including bonus tracks not available on vinyl.

Al Manfredi

Al Manfredi - Blue Gold

A rock concept album, as progressive as it is psychedelic, recorded by a 17 year old Tom Nehls and his high school friends in Minneapolis over a three month period in late 1972. Nehls original notes describe his influences: The Beatles, Zappa, Tolkien. But that amalgamation cannot prepare you for the depths that this wunderkind explored with first-time engineer Paul Stark, who would later found Twin/Tone Records and sign and develop punk legends The Replacements and dozens of other bands. 

Stark custom pressed a run of Paul 1000 copies of the album but 900 of them were destroyed when Nehls basement flooded.  He hand assembled the remaining copies, spray painting the first few covers and then pasting black and white sheets of paper on the rest. He sold a few copies to friends in his high school. And that, for nearly 20 years, was that.

Legendary psychedelic record collector Rich Haupt, one of the first  to discover Nehls’ album over three decades ago, writes “Imperfection is beauty, madness is genius and true genius never comes in a slick package. If these words are true, I Always Catch The Third Second Of A Yellow Light is the proof. " This album is a welcome addition to the genre Paul Major called “Real People Music;” a wonderful and sincere exploration of the human predicament that reveals more of itself with each listen.

This is the first vinyl reissue of the album, overseen by Nehls with Now-Again’s Egon, and mastered from Starks’ original tapes.

I Always Catch The Third Second Of A Yellow Light

Tom Nehls - Your Death

Karl Hector And The Malcouns - Mother Seletta (Single Edit)

The collected soul, funk, gospel and rock releases from Indianapolis’ greatest label. Available at rappcats.com

NA7005 - Everybody Who Wants To Be Free

Everybody Who Wants To Be Free

nowagainrecords.com

This 2/LP gatefold vinyl is available with:
Now-Again Reserve: a deluxe vinyl subscription.

Trombonist, bandleader, songwriter, arranger and producer James Reese never issued an album with his Progressions band, only a series of 45s – some under his own name, some under that of his collaboraors – out of Spartanburg, South Carolina on his Najma label, from the late 1960s until the mid 1970s. He was as ambitious as he was talented, and his ouevre ranges from brutal, deep soul to sophisticated instrumental ballads to jazz-inflected funk. Now-Again’s Egon first discovered Reese’s music on a 24 lock-in in Concord, North Carolina’s legendary record and antique clock repository, Ye Olde Clock Shoppe, in 1999. After he tracked down Reese, he officially reissued two of Reese’s songs on his seminal Stones Throw anthology The Funky 16 Corners. He later issued more of Reese’s music on the Now-Again anthology Loving On The Flipside.

Sourced from rare 45s and multi-track master tapes, Wait For Me: The Complete Works 1967-1972 presents both issued and recently-rediscovered songs in the full-length format, in a cohesive set that shows the brilliance still arising from the American soul and funk sub-strata. Long time Now-Again associate Kenny Dope presents a remix of the song “Throwing Stones,” and Now-Again mastering engineer Jason Bitner presents alternate mixes of various cuts on a bonus second LP, available only to subscribers. Those mixes are also included as part of the 2 CD set that accompanies the vinyl album. Both LP and CD version contain an extensive booklet detailing the trajectory of Reese and his band. Download card for WAV files included with the LP.

James Reese and the Progressions ft. Marlene King - “Throwing Stones (Kenny Dope Mix)"

Now-Again Records

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