Wenu Wenu - Omar Souleyman
Wenu Wenu Image
Metascore
83

Universal acclaim - based on 7 Critics What's this?

until album release
  • Summary: Produced by Four Tet's Kieran Hebden, the official debut studio release for the Syrian dabke singer was recorded in Brooklyn with keyboardist Rizan Sa'id.
  • Record Label: Ribbon Music
  • Genre(s): Electronic, Pop/Rock, Club/Dance, International, Middle Eastern Traditions, Syrian
  • More Details and Credits »
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 6 out of 7
  2. Negative: 0 out of 7
  1. Oct 16, 2013
    90
    With lyrics in the languages of Turkey, Kurdistan and Iraq all included, with the express aim of engaging listeners throughout the region, Souleyman’s mission to bring a more positive view of his country, and its thrilling musical forms, to a wider audience continues unabated.
  2. Oct 14, 2013
    80
    Quite unlike any other record you'll hear this year. [Nov 2013, p.116]
  3. Oct 14, 2013
    80
    Wenu Wenu cleans up Souleyman's music just enough to place it in an expanded musical and sonic context that creates a new frontier without sacrificing its power.
  4. Oct 14, 2013
    80
    Indubitably, worth the oxide it's been taped on. [Nov 2013, p.86]
  5. Oct 14, 2013
    80
    Wenu Wenu is at last the genuine article. That it also captures the chaos of his live show is no small achievement either. [Nov 2013, p.80]
  6. Oct 16, 2013
    80
    Thanks to the sheer joy with which he performs it (produced here for the first time by Kieran Hebden), it’s irresistibly, inevitably satisfying.
  7. Oct 14, 2013
    60
    The switch to studio recording has inevitably come at the cost of some of the ramshackle beauty that characterised those early recordings, but he’s found a sympathetic producer in Four Tet’s Kieran Hebden, who astutely recorded the majority of this set live in the studio, limiting his input to minor flourishes.