“Syrian singer Omar Souleyman’s Wenu Wenu is technically his first proper recording, having been cut in a studio in Brooklyn rather than on site at one of the thousands of weddings he’s performed over the past two decades. Four Tet's Kieran Hebden, who produced, made the wise decision not to try and improve on a sound that doesn’t need fixing.”
“Wedding-singer-cum-Björk remixer Omar Souleyman is known for urban Syrian dabke dance music. But his hookahbar synths, guitar-hero electric saz runs and blazing digitized hand percussion will probably translate to most Western ravers as EDM-grade belly-dance music. And why not? Singing in Arabic and Kurdish, he pitches R&B woo, invoking camelhair scarves ("Yagbuni") and Damascus honeymoons (the Ar”
