so this omar souleyman guy (RFI, RFD)

xp - I don't know about the profits/financials for Sublime Frequencies, but I am familiar with how much money and time Mark, personally, invested in Omar and promoting his work

All I heard was blah blah blah..

look if you want to make assumptions based on superficial cynicism, go ahead, but it's pretty stupid to maintain those assumptions when someone is telling you that they actually know the truth.

nb, tl;dr below, may be strawmanning, had a bunch of ideas and a bong and decided to combine the two so plz insert ymmv, imho, idk what i'm saying here as appropriate:-- I don't want to argue that there aren't complexities in recontextualizing a syrian wedding singer for a western popular audience, but why does raising this discussion always seem to skew towards negative interpretations? "exotic" seems to connote a kind of fetishized otherness, as though souleyman were being commodified. the guy of course is already always 'commodifying' himself - he supports his family through playing music professionally, first in weddings and now for hip western record labels. moreover tho it's not like his popularity is this rough, depersonalized exotic figure - i think his coming over has been very centered in the context of his original performances. his audience knows this was originally wedding music, they know his story, and bc of current foreign events they might even know more about syria than they've ever known. also tho, i feel like we don't bat an eyelid when western music is removed from its context and dispersed to non-western countries. we even assume that this expected - either bc of our dominant western aesthetics (lolz, jk) or bc the west is an economic hegemon. but music always has this loose porous relationship between communities; in some aspects souleyman is colonizing a western audience. he's being appreciated as an artist and that is exactly what he is.

agree with that

I distractedly listened to teh NPR stream - sounded good, not very different from his old stuff - but maybe I need to hear this on proper home speakers to appreciate the commercial glossing up.

i feel like we don't bat an eyelid when western music is removed from its context and dispersed to non-western countries

Yeah there's not much of this sort of handwringing around, say, afrobeats (which is largely made up of African pop, dancehall, US hip-hop and London dance music in varying proportions). But maybe that's because we're used to the idea of a constant cultural exchange with the bigger African countries. Physical exchange as well, most people who spend time in a big UK or US city will have encountered someone from Nigeria or Ghana whereas the same might not be true of someone from Syria, many people have had zero exposure to Syrian music, so people get this idea of it being this fragile bird that needs to be protected. As far as I'm aware there isn't anyone saying "Omar Souleyman is the only good Syrian music" or worse still "Omar Souleyman transcends Syrian music".

I do get the sense he's a guy you need to see live to see him at his best, though.

yep. live with a hyped enough crowd, his shows have been some of the most energetic/fun/dancey/manic shows i've ever seen.

that Christgau/Spin review is good, but lol @ this line:

the programmed drums generate rhythms that few American tub-thumpers could map, much less replicate

i like the music but it's not exactly rhythmically complicated.

I didn't see the other article until after the edit -- what was removed?

Hebden seemed a bit upset yesterday: "Some of these pitchfork writers are such fucking amateurs. Facts all over the place."

drama aside this is a great album

Yeah there's not much of this sort of handwringing around, say, afrobeats (which is largely made up of African pop, dancehall, US hip-hop and London dance music in varying proportions).

There's actually a significant difference. I don't know much about Afrobeats, but as I understand it, it's something that grew up within a British immigrant community. Souleyman in the west functions as an individual transplanted into a foreign environment. It's not particularly a Syrian American or Arab American community supporting him (correct me if I'm wrong), and his sound isn't an immigrant hybrid. This seems like the kind of stuff you'd hear at dinner concerts, with tabouleh and shawarma and plentiful bottles of arak, but that's not the circuit he's performing in in the U.S. Or do they make some concessions to those things at these shows?

Not that I feel really strongly about these issues. I like Souleyman. I've heard somewhat similar (and also entirely different) Arab music I like more.

I don't think much of him as a vocalist.

the few other bits of dabke I've heard haven't had as good vocals as his stuff, is there someone w/ similar stoic anguish you wld recommend?

I don't really listen to a lot of debka per se, or when I do it's usually by someone who performs a wide range of genres. So not really.

Would much rather listen to Mohammed Assaf's debka, but that's an entirely different thing. Doesn't have the trippiness of what Souleyman is doing. I have a live recording by Saleh Abdel Gafor which has some of that quality. It's not debka, but feels related. Not sure about the stoic anguish thing though. I wouldn't have thought of that as a description of Souleyman. Honestly I don't go looking for or expect stoic anguish in Arab vocalists. Maybe I'd describe Marcel Khalife that way at times, but if you know him, you know he sounds nothing like Souleyman.

I don't know how to just put a file up somewhere any more. Those sites all ask for too much involvement at this point.

I like some of Syrian debka star Ali Al Deek's music too (especially the album Aloush), but he may be too light for Souleyman fans.

(Wouldn't exactly call him a vocal virtuoso either.)

wenu wenu might be my favorite song of the year

I really like the four tet dude's production on this, subtle and relatively faithful to the style. Certainly "glossed up" but not in an obnoxious way like one of those putumayo records.

and the keyboard sound totally kills

^^otm on both posts. The keyboard solo on "Ya Yumma" is a scorcher. My heart starts racing when Souleyman kicks the song off with his jalla-jalla... Don't care about vocal virtuosos, I just love the grit in his vocals. Makes me want to smoke a cig with him :)

One thing that is great about Omar Souleymann is how full on his music is... for all that the indie hipsters are supposedly embracing him, he is more like a Syrian Scooter than a Syrian [insert name of currently kewl hipster band].

Syrian Scooter you say??? *downloads furiously*

I was actually saying to some friends a while back that if Omar Souleyman and Scooter teamed up we would have some next level fun amazingness. Throw in Fatman Scoop and the world would implode.

I don't know if Fatman Scoop would be willing to rock the jam once again

and the keyboard sound totally kills

― signed, J.P. Morgan CEO (Hurting 2), Monday, December 23, 2013 12:07 AM (5 months ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

totally. really digging this whole album

i have no qualms about the cleaner production, i think the record sounds great. i like this album a lot and i still like highway to hassake a lot, they are different and the production differences don't bother me much. the music is great on both albums.

i do feel like his vocals were stronger on the earlier stuff, though, i imagine just as a result of age (now 15-20 years after those early recordings e.g. "leh jani" were first made). i felt like like sang with a greater urgency & fierceness on the earlier records that seems toned down here, not intentionally. his voice just seems older and somewhat less energetic. it's still very strong though.

free show at millennium park in chicago this monday-- stoked!!!!!

oh shit

you are gonna wenu like crazy i bet

damn i've never listened to jazeera nights before, it's outstanding

"nahy" from wenu wenu is such a jam

also new track, new album coming, and a tour

http://pitchfork.com/news/58990-omar-souleyman-teams-with-four-tet-modeselektor-black-lips-for-new-album-bahdeni-nami

03-26 Boise, ID - Treefort Music Festival
03-27 Athens, GA - Slingshot Festival
03-28 Knoxville, TN - Big Ears Festival
05-21 Halifax, Nova Scotia - Obey Convention 8
05-22 New York, NY - Le Poisson Rouge
05-23 Los Angeles, CA - Jewels Catch One
05-30 Bristol, England - Colston Hall
06-06 Copenhagen, Denmark - Distortion Festival
06-12 Toronto, Ontario - Bestival Toronto
06-26 Beuningen, Netherlands - Down The Rabbit Hole
07-11 Trencin, Slovakia - Pohoda Festival
07-16 Dour, Belgium - Dour Festival /

https://soundcloud.com/monkeytownrecords/omar-souleyman-enssa-el-aatab-prod-by-modeselektor/s-ghd5W guess it is not super new, came out a few weeks ago, it is very good imo

worth traveling up to NY to see him? srsly debating it now.

I would!

I am really digging this new tune

ehhhhh tbh seeing him live was pretty underwhelming

although i did see him at a huge free late afternoon outdoor show, i would be willing to see him a 2nd time in a club setting

i've seen him three times and all of them at large outdoor spaces; i think his energy would be GREATLY improved at a small club like Poisson Rouge. I bet that'll be rocking

When I went to see him last year I hoped/expected to be able to see Rizan Sa'id do his magic on the synthesizer (as my friend did when he saw him a couple of years earlier) but it turned out there was 'just' someone who controlled a laptop from which the music was generated/streamed. Bit of a bummer, really. He's a great performer though.

Rizan was at the gig i attended, but both were both dwarfed by the enormous stage they came nowhere near occupying

i missed him in Chicago last year but finally saw him at Big Ears last week and the crowd was so into it. it was a smallish space (not an outdoor festival) and everyone was dancing. like every single person except for the man next to me so i gently elbowed him away

my question: will someone please recommend me more music that sounds like "atabat"? iirc he didn't play any slow songs live because it probably would have killed the mood or caused someone to spontaneously combust.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ESh_qPZFLiI

Wow, this new album. Can't put my finger on it but it's both super familiar yet a lot better than Wenu Wenu

oh I didn't realise he had a new one, cool!

what do you all think of bahdeni nemi?

seems less urgent than wenu wenu and especially the SF releases but i am enjoying it

who's heard the new one?