Yasmine Hamdan doesn’t play by other people’s rules. She barely plays by her own. Now into the fourth decade of her life, the thoughtfully spoken, occasionally contentious and consistently innovative Lebanese singer is getting ready to release her second synth-fused album, breaking further out of the box she built on her 2013 debut, Ya Nass.
“It’s very different. I’m not interested in doing the same thing each time, and I’m not afraid of taking some risks. This album resembles many things that I’ve done, but it’s going much further. I’m exploring more [deeply] some ideas that were already on the table,” she said.
Hamdan will be in Dubai on December 7 to perform as part of Vibe Series at the Music Room. It’s a long way from home – once Lebanon, now France – but being on the road is what inspired the conception of her sophomore album in the first place.
Al Jameelat, titled after the Mahmoud Darwish poem of the same name — “it’s extremely beautiful, an ode to womanhood, complexity, diversity, beauty and fragility” – was born in New York, Paris, Beirut and London, on planes, trains and cars. It’s set to be released in March.
“I was touring and in a very dislocated mood, because I’d be moving every day between countries and cities. I didn’t have the solitude that I need when I compose,” she said.
“Still it was quite thrilling, because I was bored. I’m bored, normally, when I travel. So it was really fun to be able to escape and compose while I’m moving from a place to another.”
Born in 1976, Hamdan was a self-proclaimed shy child, ‘extremely introverted’. She went to school for psychology and took a keen interest in literature and painting, but wound up choosing music as her creative outlet. (She also married a creative Palestinian filmmaker, Elia Suleiman.)
“I was always lost. I didn’t know exactly what I wanted to do. I was just curious and attracted to different things. Music was definitely the thing I always fantasised [about] doing. Music liberated me,” she said.
In 1997, at the age of 20, she founded her first musical project, Soapkills, with Zeid Hamdan — no relation — and became one of the only Arabic electronic acts at the time. Hamdan still sings in Arabic, regardless of whether or not that limits her audience.
Her inspirations are borderless, from Japanese koto music – a stringed musical instrument and the national instrument of Japan - to Pakistani act Abida Parveen. But the olden, golden era of Arabic music is what she continuously returns to.
“It’s always the same gang. Abdel Wahab, Sayed Darwish, Sheikh Imam, Asmahan, Umm Kolthoum, Zakiya Hamdan, Laila Mourad. Lately, I’ve been really listening to old Kuwaiti music. I’m interested in that sound – I’m interested in some memories related to that, because part of my childhood was in the Gulf,” said Hamdan.
The diversity of her muses bubbles right up to the surface on Al Jameelat, aided by a rotating cast of recording musicians and her own roving lifestyle.
“It’s not electronic in terms of beats, but the textures, the modernity is there. It’s very produced. I wrote all of the songs, aside from the Mahmoud Darwish lyric,” she said.
“It’s like traveling, like somehow moving from a place to another. It’s very nomadic. I travelled while composing it and then I travelled while recording it, so it’s really about movement and it’s really about colours, varieties and shades of sound. I feel like I really challenged myself in a different way. I’m quite excited.”
Don’t miss it!
*Tickets to see Yasmine Hamdan at the Music Room are Dh220 on platinumlist.net, or Dh250 at the door. 21+ only. Doors open at 7pm.
