The Bard reflects on sharing a bed, and why he wont go to Chelsea
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Latest releases from Roger Fakhr, Ryley Walker and Le SuperHomard & Maxwell Farrington
MARY CONWAY applauds a new play that foresees the unscrupulous tactics of a future far-right minority government
RON JACOBS is moved to tears by an eloquent journal of heartfelt intensity and human portraiture
ROBERT OVETZ recommends a case study, from the University of Leicester, in their struggle against precarization, AI, privatisation, outsourcing, and work intensification in higher education
IAN SINCLAIR welcomes a lucid critique of a technology that reproduces and enables oppression, power, and environmental devastation
SIMON PARSONS applauds an impassioned demonstration of the fundamental role of women in the history and protection of the forest ecosystem
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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