Back From The Brink

Two years after his appearance on Forge Your Own Chains sparked curiosity, Now-Again brought together a collection of songs by Iranian singer Kourosh Yaghmaei that lay heavy with the implications of its subtitle. A massive star in his home country before the Islamic Revolution of 1979 banned anything with nods to Western culture, Yaghmaei’s works collected here would feel hauntingly sweet and sorrowful — thanks in part to the expressive melodic nuance of his voice — even without the specter of it being taken away from him.