Omar Souleyman: Bahdeni Nami | Album Review

There are two sides to Omar Souleyman. Home in Syria, he's the wedding singer, the dude who turns up to perform at a couple's big day and leaves behind a live recording as a present. Beyond Syria, his rep as an electronic music buccaneer continues to grow, as audiences go wild for his mesmerising, wigged-out takes on dabke folk. A glitzy gang of collaborators are onboard for the new album (Kieran "Four Tet" Hebden, Gilles Peterson, Black Lips, Modeselektor, Legowelt) but Souleyman's own feral, frantic sound dominates. The vitality, colour and expressive fervour of Souleyman's sound resonates best of all. While the Modeselektor assists work well on Leil El Bareh and Enssa El Aatab, Souleyman's dizzy music requires little more than some production spit and polish to hit the mark soundcloud.com/omarsouleyman