- The Syrian artist's latest album is his most polished yet, with hints of Eurodance and trance.
- Omar Souleyman was first exposed to Western audiences in the late '00s, when the cassette recordings of his performances as a wedding singer in Syria's Al-Jazira region caught the attention of Sublime Frequencies producer Mark Gergis. The US label put out Souleyman's music, marketing it as "truly the sound of Syria," which catapulted the singer to international fame. He collaborated with Björk and Four Tet, had top billing on the Global North festival circuit and inked a record deal with Diplo's Mad Decent label. His previous LPs, from 2013's Wenu Wenu to Shlon in 2019, were emotionally versatile, balancing hi-energy dabke with melancholy ballads that make heartbreaking use of the mawwal vocal style and ataaba poetic conventions. Erbil, his latest, is a non-stop bacchanal.
It's a glossier piece of work overall, tighter in its production and sunnier in its disposition. The lead single "Rahat Al Chant Ymme" is a perfect example of the album's euphoric feel. The Syrian singer's rousing yelps call to the dance floor as the propulsive 4/4 beat and monophonic KORG riffs keep listeners hooked. Traces of Eurodance and trance echo throughout the record, with jubilant synth fills and swan diving portamenti galore. This is on dazzling display on "Male Atab," where Souleyman sings "I don't want anyone to talk to me or reproach me / I don't care anymore who loves me and who doesn't." (These lyrics were translated from the original Arabic.) In different hands, these words of emotional defeat would inspire a sparse, muted musical treatment. But with Souleyman, maximalism is almost always the answer. Synthesised saz and mijwiz somersault and tumble through the air, pausing every so often to make way for a breathy kawala, all while fidgety hand drums keep the heart rate above 140 BPM. The track doesn't quite reach the speed of "Ya Bnayya" from his To Syria, With Love EP, but it's exhilarating nonetheless.
Love is the primary subject on the album—as it has been for the vast majority of his decades-long career—but its gaze isn't solely directed at romantic obsession. Souleyman sings about passion for one's lover, one's family, one's friends and one's country. The album pays homage to Erbil, the city in Iraqi Kurdistan where he now lives, having moved there from Turkey, where he settled after fleeing Syria following the outbreak of the civil war in 2011.
Erbil makes conspicuous use of campy English-language samples. The album opens with a man gasping, "oh, my God," followed by another sample of someone delivering a Fatman Scoop-style injunction to "make some noise." The cheesy MC intro feels like a tongue-in-cheek homage to Souleyman's beginnings as a wedding singer in his native Syria, framing the album as a feel-good party record. There's a jarring juxtaposition between the vengeful heat of the lyrics and the buoyant melody. "You broke my heart, I will break yours / Why do you torture me? Don't you fear God?" he intones on "Yal Harek Qalbe." His keyboardist Hasan Jamo Alo crafts an infectious dabke beat around his stentorian voice, sketching out an effervescent arghul flourish here, an oud trill there.
The stark lyrical and musical contrast is reversed on "Ma Andi Gherak Mahbuub." Here, love is pure, loyal, undying—yet to meet betrayal. Souleyman vows, "God knows you alone are my beloved / God knows what's in my heart." Musically, however, it's the most menacing of the album, building from a sinister bassline to thunderous kicks that gird the track like a steel cage. It's a shame Erbil has no accompanying lyric sheet because these contradictions and idiosyncrasies, which are quintessential to his charm, are otherwise inaccessible to many of his fans in the West.
It's near impossible to read anything about the artist without encountering Souleyman's narrative of his exponential rise to fame, and it's not hard to see why. Interpretations of Souleyman's work as either a happy-go-lucky fusion of East-meets-West or as exotic compositions sanitised to maximise appeal to Western palates are all too common. Souleyman has flat out rejected these interpretations numerous times throughout his career. He doesn't see himself as a cultural mediator between the East and West, nor has he ever set out to pander to Western tastes. As he said in 2013, "I won't change my style ever because it is what I am. If I change to be more consistent with European or Western culture, it won't be me, and I will be abandoning my tradition and society."
Souleyman's commitment to traditionalism poses a challenge for the rubric of Western music criticism, where innovation and novelty are held in high esteem. There are more than a handful of reviews finding Souleyman's body of work lacking because it seemingly fails to hybridise, experiment or push limits. But this line of inquiry rings hollow. His music braids the strands of rich musical traditions, art forms and genres from the Arab, Kurdish, Assyrian and Turkish communities of north-eastern Syria. Repetition—the loving iteration and reiteration of Al-Jazira's musical traditions—is the point.
Souleyman isn't concerned with the avant-garde. Working within the framework of jizrawi shaabi, his work is quite literally "for the people." It's working-class music, which has drawn the disdain of critics in the Anglophobe and Arabic-speaking worlds alike for being lowbrow and trashy. His is music for the streets, music for everyday life. On Erbil, he continues to do what he's always done best: getting the party started and whipping the crowd into a frenzy.
Tracklist01. Yal HarakQalbe
02. Ma Andi Gherak Mahbuub
03. Thawb Alzifah
04. Male Atab
05. Mahad Yadri
06. Rahat Al Chant Ymme
07. Maet Ala Shoftha
08. Allishiryan