Yasmine Hamdan

In the organizer's words:

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Yasmine Hamdan first emerged on the music scene with Soapkills, the groundbreaking indie-electronic duo she co-founded with Zeid Hamdan in Beirut in the late 90s.

The band gradually achieved emblematic status, and to this day Yasmine is considered an icon throughout the Arab world.

After moving to Paris in 2005, Yasmine teamed up with Madonna producer Mirwais for the short-lived project Y.A.S. and recorded the album Arabology (released by Universal in 2009). Yasmine then recorded her first solo album Ya Nass with Marc Collin of Nouvelle Vague. The album was released by Crammed Discs in Europe, Japan and the USA. "Hal", one of the album's tracks, was used in Jim Jarmusch's film Only Lovers Left Alive and was a contender for the 2014 Academy Award for Best Original Song.

Ya Nass has received critical acclaim worldwide, including from The New York Times, BBC World News, Arte, ZDF, France 24, NPR, KCRW, France Inter, Le Figaro, Le Monde, The Guardian, The Herald Tribune, UK Metro, Huffington Post, Rolling Stone, CNN, Al Hayat and Al Arabiya, who have praised her work. She has been a guest on British television's flagship live music program "Later... with Jools Holland" on the BBC and on NPR's popular American music program "Tiny Desk Concerts". Ya Nass also made NPR's list of best world music albums for 2014.

Her second album, entitled Al Jamilat ("The Beautiful Ones"), was released in 2017 and was produced by Yasmine together with British producers Luke Smith (Foals, Depeche Mode, Lily Allen) and Leo Abrahams (Brian Eno, Carl Barât). The album features New York musicians Shahzad Ismaily (Laurie Anderson, Lou Reed, John Zorn, Marc Ribot) and Steve Shelley from Sonic Youth, among others.

Yasmine Hamdan has performed on four continents, including at the Sydney Opera House (Australia), the Byblos Music Festival (Lebanon), the Olympia, the Trianon and the Gaîté Lyrique (Paris), the Francofolies de Montréal, Meltdown Festival, Glastonbury, Roundhouse & Royal Albert Hall (London), Haus der Kulturen der Welt (Berlin), Qasr El Nil (Cairo), Sziget Festival (Hungary), Akbank Festival (Istanbul) and Kyoto Music Exposition Festival (Japan). She has worked with directors such as Elia Suleiman, Danièle Arbid, Ghassan Salhab and others.

While Yasmine's vocals are deeply rooted in the Arabic musical tradition (which she interprets in an unconventional and fresh way), the structures and arrangements of her songs are characterized by contemporary Western influences from electronic, pop and folk, setting her apart from traditional norms.

Her third solo album "I Remember I Forget", which she produced in Paris together with Marc Collin (Nouvelle Vague), is due to be released worldwide in March 2025 on Crammed Discs/ [PIAS].