Omar Souleyman
Wed., Nov. 3, 8 p.m., $20, with Electric Simcha, Johnny Brenda's, 1201 N. Frankford Ave., 877-435-9849, johnnybrendas.com.
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[ arabic ]
A bona-fide Syrian superstar, 41-year-old former construction worker Omar Souleyman plays some of the most astonishingly visceral party music out there, a magpie fusion of regional styles — Iraqi choubi, Turkish and Kurdish folk, but primarily dabke, a pan-Arabian line dance typically heard at weddings — combined with breakneck electronic beats. Prodigious sidemen, meanwhile, furnish frantic, shrilly buzzing keyboard and oud solos in furious, microtonal bursts around his melismatic wailing. Thanks to Seattle's ethnographic Sublime Frequencies label, who've culled from Souleyman's hundreds upon hundreds of cassette releases for a series of domestic compilations — most recently this year's Jazeera Nights — he's attracted a growing international audience, and this first-ever U.S. tour should be an occasion for some seriously next-level world partying.
Wed., Nov. 3, 8 p.m., $20, with Electric Simcha, Johnny Brenda's, 1201 N. Frankford Ave., 877-435-9849, johnnybrendas.com.
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