Praed (pronounced pra-ed) were founded in 2006 by Raed Yassin and Paed Conca. Hunt around the internet however and you’ll just as likely find them performing as duo at ‘out there’ events such as the wonderfully eclectic Fanø Free Folk Festival as you are in their extended orchestra form at something like Romania’s Outernational Days. They fit in well at such events which champion the peripheries of sub-cultures and shift away from western rules.
They recently released Live In Sharjah via Berlin label Morphine Records, it provides a breath-taking envelope-pushing taste of their broad vision and what they can achieve with a 13-piece band whose performances can be euphoric and trance-like. Highlights include Doomsday Survival Kit and Embassy of Embarrassment. Watch them performing the latter at Outernational Days.
Intro to Live In Sharjah
If you’ve ever travelled to Egypt and wandered through its crowded streets, you probably ended up buying a cassette or a CDR of popular synth-based music heard in most cabs, cabarets, or alleys around town: the almighty Shaabi.
Raed Yassin and Paed Conca based their project PRAED on research between Shaabi and Mouled (traditional trance music from Egypt) and the hypnotic structures of both these genres. Repetitive beats, loud Mizmar and loads of energy, with a strong influence from psychedelic rock, free jazz and electronica.
During the years in which the duo produced 4 albums and performed on an endless number of stages around the globe, PRAED started working on an ambitious expansive project: an orchestra that could transpose this study of rural and popular culture into an immense, iconic work. In autumn 2018, supported by the Sharjah Art Foundation, PRAED Orchestra! premiered “Live in Sharjah”, interpreting new material merged with some of the band’s iconic pieces.
Read more and order via Bandcamp: https://morphinerecords.bandcamp.com/album/live-in-sharjah
Photo Credit: Tony Elieh