From the moment Wenu Wenu opens up, S-Xpress style, with an overcharged blast of synth before electronic reeds and Saz storm in alongside the gruff Syrian baritone of legendary wedding singer Omar Souleyman, it’s just a non-stop party. As the nights draw long and the temperature plummets, this record is a last nod towards hot summer nights and never-ending good times.

The legend has it that while Souleyman has performed at countless weddings and made as many cassette recordings of his turns since the mid-90s, Wenu Wenu is in fact his debut album with trusted right-hand synth man Rizan Sa’id, and produced in Brooklyn by Four Tet’s Kieran Hebden. Although you can hear touches of Iranian and Turkish music seeping in here, this is essentially a record of dabke music, the joyous sound found at weddings across the Middle East and through parts of the Balkans. Given the hardships and conflicts these countries and cultures have been subjected to in recent years – poignantly, of course Souleyman’s own country of Syria is currently being torn apart by war – then it’s hardly a surprise that Wenu Wenu is close to non-stop party techno (with a distinctly Eastern flavour) from its opening notes til final melodies. Only the slightly downbeat “Khattaba”, with its handclaps and impassioned vocals creating a treacly, emotional atmosphere, provides any sign of introspection or thoughts of absent friends at this party. But then, for many years – particularly during wartime – Scottish weddings included the morose “The Flowers of the Forest” as part of the celebrations. In Lewis Grassic Gibbon’s Sunset Song, Chris Guthrie says “how strange was the sadness of Scotland’s singing, made for the sadness of the land and sky…” and with countries torn apart by loss over centuries, this may always hang heavy over their songs.

However, aside from that moment, Souleyman is here to celebrate and get us dancing, and boy does he do that. From the spiralling saz solos of opening track “Wenu Wenu”, through Sa’id’s heart-racing synth percussion and Omar’s breathless chanting that leads “Ya Yumma” and its merry dance, to the house music piano stabs of the extremely funky “Mawal Jamar”, this is us being dropped straight into a musical culture and genre without too much knowledge of its history yet we can still “get” what’s going on. Syrian techno might be a trite way of explaining it, but it’s plain to hear that dabke music has much in common with western dance music; while Hebden’s production is key in making these songs sound so pure and approaching the status of a club banger, he makes no attempt to dilute the traditional sounds for western ears, nor does he try to make Souleyman (already cool enough with his aviators, leather jacket and keffiyeh) into something he’s not.

As the exuberant closer “Yagbuni” brings the wedding to a close with more virtuoso saz playing (I really do hope to hear more of that instrument in the future) and thumping percussion you don’t need to understand the lyrics to appreciate Wenu Wenu and know that it speaks of love, hope and dreams. This is a record that moves and moves.