Luckily, there is a terrific looseness and freshness to the music. With jazzy instrumental sections rubbing up against finger-picked guitar, chunky riffing and nifty electronic beeps, it makes for an occasional knotty listen. There are echoes of his previous work, but the proggy indie laid down here is new territory for the Illinois-born singer-songwriter. HAVING wooed critics with 2015’s John Martyn-influenced Primrose Hill and the sublime Golden Sings That Have Been Sung the year after, 31-year old Ryley Walker is back with his fifth studio album.
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.įakhr was something of a musical magpie, with Had to Come Back Wet running around a delicious funky beat, while Lady Rain echoes the sincere romantic folk of Nick Drake and the aforementioned CS&N’s Guinevere.Ī fascinating find, this is crate-digging at its best. That album, along with some other tracks recorded in Paris, has now been rereleased as Fine Anyway. 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.
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