This video © Mark Gergis & Sublime Frequencies. All Rights Reserved. //// Visit: omarsouleyman.com for details.///////// Track 1 from the Sublime Frequencies CD, "Omar Souleyman- Highway to Hassake: Folk and Pop Sounds of Syria". An excerpt from the track "Leh Jani" taken from cassette. Featuring: Omar Souleyman - vocals Rizan Sa'id - Keyboard/Rhythms Hamid Suleiman - electric saz Mahmoud Harbi - Poetry Recorded in SYRIA. Filmed on location in Syria and edited by Mark Gergis with additional footage from various VCD video clips representing 10 years of Omar Souleyman video clips and footage. Omar Souleyman is a Syrian musical legend. Since 1994, he and his musicians have emerged as a staple of folk-pop throughout Syria, but until now they have remained little known outside of the country. To date, they have issued more than five-hundred studio and live- recorded cassette albums which are easily spotted in the shops of any Syrian city. Born in rural Northeastern Syria, he began his musical career in 1994 with a small group of local collaborators that remain with him today. The myriad musical traditions of the region are evident in their music. Here, classical Arabic mawal-style vocalization gives way to high-octane Syrian Dabke (the regional folkloric dance and party music), Iraqi Choubi and a host of Arabic, Kurdish and Turkish styles, among others. The music often has an overdriven sound consisting of phase-shifted Arabic keyboard solos and frantic rhythms. At breakneck speeds, these shrill Syrian electronics play out like forbidden morse-code, but the moods swing from coarse and urgent to dirgy and contemplative in the rugged anthems that comprise Souleyman's repertoire. Oud, reeds, baglama saz, accompanying vocals and percussion fill out the sound from track to track. Mahmoud Harbi is a long-time collaborator and the man responsible for much of the poetry sung by Souleyman. Together, they commonly perform the Ataba, a traditional form of folk poetry used in Dabke. On stage, Harbi chain smokes cigarettes while standing shoulder to shoulder with Souleyman, periodically leaning over to whisper the material into his ear. Acting as a conduit, Souleyman struts into the audience with urgency, vocalizing the prose in song before returning for the next verse. Sublime Frequencies is honored to present the Western debut of Omar Souleyman with this retrospective disc of studio and live recordings spanning 12 years of his career, culled from cassettes recorded between 1994 and 2006. This collection offers a rare glimpse into Syrian street-level folk-pop and Dabke-- a phenomena seldom heard in the West, not previously deemed serious enough for export by the Syrians and rarely, if ever, included on the import agenda of worldwide academic musical committees. CD and LP available at: www.sublimefrequencies.com Also available digitally via iTunes