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Transpacific Sound Paradise
Saturday, December 1, 2018
Caracoles: Effervescent Sounds of the Canary Islands Recorded Live at WOMEX

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Caracoles, from Tenerife in Spain's Canary Islands, play mestizo music: rousing blends of Spanish, Latin American and African styles reflecting the islands' cultural diversity, history and location - the Canaries are much closer to Morocco than to continental Spain. The band just released a great new album, their third, called Flores.

Caracoles is also very politically conscious: They've raised money for refugees - in fact they're performing a benefit for Syrian refugees tonight (Saturday December 1st) in Tenerife! And they traveled to Greece to perform at refugee camps there.

This past October, Caracoles performed as part of the opening night gala at WOMEX, Europe's itinerant "world music" expo - which was being held for the first time ever in the Canary Islands. The next day, Caracoles got together with Rob to record an exclusive WFMU session in the WOMEX / EBU radio studio - which we hear on tonight's show!

Check out the wonderful new Caracoles album Flores - and their earlier releases too - on Bandcamp: https://caracoles.bandcamp.com/

Caracoles web page: http://www.somoscaracoles.com

Caracoles on facebook (please like them!): https://www.facebook.com/pg/Caracolescomenflores/

By the way, the band's name has a double-meaning: While "caracoles" means "snails" in Spanish, singer Nuria Hernández tells us that the choice of name really was inspired by the palo flamenco (flamenco style) called caracoles. Which, in turn, comes from a group of flamenco palos called cantiñas that originated in the area of Cádiz in Andalusia, in southern Spain.

Massive thanks to our illustrious engineers Sigtor Kjetså of NRK, Norway's national broadcasting service and Janko Johann of COSMO, the multi-cultural service of German broadcaster WDR, with assistance from musician / engineer Willy Sahel; as well as to NRK host / producer Sigbjørn Nedland, and to Gaurav Narula of Piranha, the venerable German world music record label, creative content producers and producers of WOMEX.

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TICKET GIVEAWAY TONIGHT to see Yasmine Hamdan + Caged Animals, at Warsaw, 261 Driggs Ave., Brooklyn, Monday night (Dec 3) - doors open at 8.

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To get in the running for a pair of tickets: Email me, Rob W, here, and please put the word "TIX" in the subject line. Deadline to enter is TONIGHT at 9 pm. Two pairs of tickets are available. Anyone may enter but this will be a weighted giveaway with preference as follows: First preference to listeners who have never won tickets on this show. For those who have won tickets on this show in the past, priority be based on the amount of time that has passed since the last time you have won tickets on this show (in other words, the longer it's been since you last won tickets on this show, the better your chances to win this time)... Winners will be notified by tomorrow (Sunday).

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Yasmine Hamdin bio by Mark Deming, all music guide:

Yasmine Hamdan is a pioneer in Middle Eastern pop music; she was the leader of Soap Kills, generally cited as the first indie/electronic act to rise to fame in that part of the world, and went on to gain an international audience as a musician, songwriter, and actress. Born in Beirut, Lebanon in 1976, Yasmine's career in music began in the mid-'90s with a rock band called Lombrix, which also featured multi-instrumentalist Zeid Hamdan (despite sharing the same last name, they're not related). In 1997, after Lombrix split up, Yasmine and Zeid launched a new project that would combine traditional Arabic music with contemporary electronic sounds. Together, they formed Soap Kills, releasing their debut album, Bater, in 2001.

Soap Kills was one of the first independent acts in Lebanon to gain a following, and became one of the most talked-about acts in the Middle East. After cutting two more albums, 2005's Cheftak and 2005's Enta Fen, and touring Europe, the Middle East, and Australia, Yasmine relocated to Paris, where she fell in with producer Mirwais, a former member of the band Taxi Girl who also collaborated with Madonna. Together, they created the 2008 album Arabology under the name Y.A.S.; Yasmine also made music with the American indie act CocoRosie.

In 2012, Yasmine stepped out on her own, going into the studio with producer Marc Collin to record her first solo effort. The album, called Yasmine Hamdan, was released in France and Lebanon by the end of the year, while a revamped and expanded edition, titled Ya Nass, was given an international release by Crammed Discs in 2013. In 2014, Yasmine's international career got a serious boost when filmmaker Jim Jarmusch featured her in his hipster vampire film Only Lovers Left Alive, starring Tilda Swinton and Tom Hiddleston; in the movie, Yasmine plays herself and delivers a mesmerizing performance at a nightclub in Tangiers.

Yasmine returned in 2017 with her second studio album, Al Jamilat (The Beautiful Ones). Produced in part by U.K. producers Luke Smith and Leo Abrahams, the album also saw her collaborating with Sonic Youth's Steve Shelley and multi-instrumentalist Shahzad Ismaily.