Consumer Guide Album

Omar Souleyman: To Syria, With Love [Mad Decent, 2017]
In a way it's simple and in a way it's anything but. The simple part is that if you like rhythmically intense music that's spare and huge and human-scale all at once, you have to hear this intransigently masculine Syrian exile: call-and-response between his imploring baritone and oud lines adapted to baritone synth (over percussion aplenty, you bet). If you're impressed, as you will be, buy an album, why not? Moreover, you might as well start with this one, which has Diplo's label behind it the way 2013's Wenu Wenu had Kieran Hebden's. The not-simple part comes if you've already got your Souleyman album--Wenu Wenu itself, or the live Haflat Garbia, say. This one's more . . . I don't know, these differentiations are so marginal, focused or measured. Also, the Arabic lyrics you'll need a booklet to parse yearn on two occasions for his lost homeland rather than some metaphorical woman. But if you already own two of his albums, I doubt you need a third. B+