I saw Omar Souleyman at this year’s FYF fest, he was competing with Solange who had a set at the same time, and honestly he was totally wining (to me). He was late, and we never knew why, but his infectious Middle Eastern dance rhythms possessed people who could have danced all night long on these exotic beats. People were ecstatic, happy, and totally hypnotized by Souleyman’s endless songs.
Despite the fact the guy counts among his fans Björk and Damon Albarn, he had never recorded a studio album, and the only recordings he had done were live shows recorded on old-fashioned tapes when he was performing at weddings!
But this is about to change and NPR is currently streaming his first ever studio album, ‘Wenu Wenu’, which was recorded with the help of Kieran Hebden aka Four Tee, and will be officially released on October 22nd via Ribbon Music. You can stream the seven songs on NPR or listen to the title track below posted on YouTube, where you can even read the translated lyrics.
According to an interview he gave to Spin magazine last June, Omar doesn’t even speak English! But this is not a problem for him as the communication between musicians works perfectly well despite language barriers:
‘He’s [Hebden] mostly mixing, Rizan performs on keyboards, I sing, and Kieran mixes. I was not familiar with his work before, but I was told he is very good. Right now, I can’t say. After the cassette comes out, I can listen to it and then judge.’
And what about the fact that most Americans can’t understand the lyrics? Souleyman gave his opinion about this too:
‘The big difference is that here the listeners don’t understand the lyrics. So perhaps we focus more on the music and the way the vocals sound.’
‘The lyrics are about love and relationships. All of the lyrics on the albums, and the ones I sing during parties, are all about love and affection between people. Here they don’t understand that, but I believe it’s possible they can feel it.’
Of course, the music sounds very ethnic-world music, and it’s much better surrounded by thousands of people sweating their ass off at 90F with throbbing lights in your face, but ‘Wenu Wenu’ installs right away a Saharan ambiance, and transports you in another part of the world, while being totally accessible with its infectious rhythms and its snake-charmer melodies.
Hipsters of the world, are you there for adventure? Omar is your man, because, when you think about it, there’s nothing more hipster than delivering your music in K-7s!