MARY CONWAY applauds the revival of a tense, and extremely funny, study of men, money and playing cards
Album reviews
Latest releases from Roger Fakhr, Ryley Walker and Le SuperHomard & Maxwell Farrington
MEHDI ACHOUCHE explores the constant fascination of cinema with Marxist alienation from Fritz Lang and Chaplin to Bong Joon Ho
FIONA O’CONNOR steps warily through a novel that skewers many of the exposed flanks of the over-privileged
MARY CONWAY applauds the study of a dysfunctional family set in an Ireland that could be anywhere
MICK MCSHANE is roused by a band whose socialism laces every line of every song with commitment and raw passion
New releases from Mountain, Soul Asylum and Michael McDermott
ALEX HALL is disgusted by the misuse of ‘emotional narratives’ to justify uninformed geo-political prejudice
Roger Fakhr
Fine Anyway
(Habibi Funk Records)
★★★★
GROWING up in the cultural melting pot of 1960s and 1970s Beirut, Roger Fakhr recorded an album’s worth of English-language songs amid the increasing violence in Lebanon, releasing just 200 copies in 1977.
That album, along with some other tracks recorded in Paris, has now been rereleased as Fine Anyway. Fascinatingly, it is the sun-dappled influence of California, not the “Paris of the Middle East” that runs through the music, specifically the hippie singer-songwriters of Laurel Canyon: check out the strong Crosby, Stills & Nash vibes of opener The Wizard.
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