Yasmine Hamdan

Yasmine Hamdan was born in Lebanon, and has lived in the Gulf countries and in Greece. She is considered as an underground icon throughout the Arab world ever since Soapkills, the emblematic duo she founded in Beirut, which must have been the first indie/electronic band to appear in the Middle East, and whose music had become the soundtrack to the vibrant, young arts scene which developed in postwar Lebanon.

While Yasmine's vocals are definitely connected to traditions of Arabic music, her songs could be described as a kind of elegant, mutant strain of electro folk pop, evocative of the music Yasmine used to listen to when she was a teenager, from Kate Bush, Nick Cave and PJ Harvey to This Mortal Coil.