Express 12. August 2021

I do not exactly remember when I heard the name Rogér Fakhr for the first time. It must have been around 2 years ago during one of these afternoons I spent at Issam Hajali’s jewelery shop on Mar Elias Street in Beirut. We had started working on the idea of re-releasing some of Issam’s music and he proposed his first album “Mouasalat Ila Jacad El Ard”; recorded before starting his band Ferkat Al Ard. As it happened, Rogér had colaborated with Issam in the process of working on the music and recording. They were both living in Paris for some time after each of them have had left Beirut sometime after 1976.

The Weather Station - project of Tamara Lindeman - releases her new album, Ignorance, on Fat Possum. Through Ignorance, Lindeman has remade what The Weather Station sounds like, using the occasion of a new record to create a novel sonic landscape, tailor-made to express an emotional idea. Ignorance is sensuous, ravishing, as hi-fi a record as Lindeman has ever made, breaking into pure pop at moments, at others a dense wilderness of notes; a deeply rhythmic and painful record that feels more urgent and clear than her work ever has.