Jazeera Nights: Folk & Pop Sounds of Syria
Omar Souleyman is a force of nature. A Syrian wedding musician in the dabke style, incorporating Turkish, Kurdish and other regional sound, he plays wild keyboard improvisations over relentlessly high energy rhythms. His synth tones have hints of Arabic reed instruments, but are still deliberately, gloriously electronic, having evolved to be as piercing and instantly stimulating as possible to cut through noise and bustle with maximum affect. They bend, modulate and swerve in ways supposedly advanced electronica artists would love to understand, even as these early recordings are as raw as anything. This is the third volume of work culled from some 500 Syrian tape releases between 1995 and 2010, and though there’s huge variation, every track feels like a torrent from an unstoppable wellspring. It’s bittersweet listening, being his last release before the Syrian revolution and brutal crackdown and conflict that followed: Souleyman escaped and has continued working successfully with international musicians from Four Tet to Diplo to Damon Albarn, but the nation that created such joy lies in bloody ruins.