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Monday, June 19

FESTIVAL CLOSING PARTY AT THIS AIN’T HOLLYWOOD (7-11 pm)

345 James St. N., Hamilton, ON
($25 door/$20 students, seniors and advance purchase)
PayPal.me/ZulaTix

Final night of SOMETHING ELSE! Festival and Matapa World Music Series will serve as a massive closing party for the festival, as well as a co-production between Zula Presents & Matapa, allowing Something Else!’s Cem Zafir to relay the baton of good wishes and positive energy to Hamilton World Music Festival to keep the summer bliss going with their annual event scheduled to take place at Lincoln Alexander Centre between July 21 and 23! Aside from general music business, festival woes and joys to commiserate and kvetch over, they share the pain of having to explain their often mispronounced, misunderstood names…

7:30 pm: SANDCATCHERS (New York)
Yoshie Fruchter oud, composition
Myk Freedman lap steel
Michael Bates bass
Dave Clark percussion

Sandcatchers was formed in the corner of Cheryl’s, a soul food restaurant on the corner of Underhill Avenue and Eastern Parkway in Brooklyn. Given the opportunity for a weekly gig, guitarist and oud player Yoshie Fruchter brought in his friends Myk Freedman on lap steel, Michael Bates on double bass, and Yonadav Halevy (with Dave Clark filling in with sufficient grace and chops!) on percussion to see what kind of music they could make together. Over the course of many weeks, a fresh sound was created blending the Middle -Eastern trope of the oud with the dreamy, Americana-infused textures of the steel – a new project was born. Featuring original music by Fruchter inspired both by maqam and the Appalachian trail, Sandcatchers is a beautiful collaboration of sound and souls.

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9:00 pm: HARAM (Vancouver)
Gord Grdina oud, composition
JP Carter trumpet
Josh Zubot violin
Kenton Loewen drums
Tommy Babin bass
Emad Armoush vocals
François Houle clarinet
Chris Kelly saxophone
Tim Gerwing percussion
Liam MacDonald percussion

“The music’s backbone is traditional, but wild outbursts of free improvisation and subtle injections of noise make it quite unlike anything you’d hear in the shisha dens of Cairo or Baghdad.” – Georgia Straight

A phenomenal culture-mashing juggernaut led by Gordon Grdina (Dan Mangan, Mats Gustafsson, Mark Helias) on oud, Haram pays homage to traditional Arabic music while mixing elements of noise, electronic soundscape, and western free improv into their explosively self-expressive sound. With creative heavy-hitters…!

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