Interview with Praed - Raed Yassin and Paed Conca
Founded by Raed Yassin and Paed Conca in 2006, “Praed” is a band whose musical oeuvre can be described as a mixture
of Arabic popular music, free jazz, and electronics. In the same year, the band made its first public appearance in Al Maslakh
festival in Switzerland, immediately followed by a concert at the Irtijal festival in Beirut. Since then, the band has frequented
numerous international music festivals and toured intensively world-wide, spanning Japan, Egypt, North, Central and South
Africa, Europe and Canada.
Through these endeavors, the band has created a large global network with other renowned musicians as musical collaborators.
The band consists of two regular members: Raed Yassin playing keyboards, laptop, electronics and vocals; and Paed Conca on
clarinet, electric bass and electronics.
PRAED did also perform under the name PRAED PLUS or PRAED extended as a big band together with Axel Dörner, Johannes
Bauer, Hans Koch and Stephane Rives or with different cast. PRAED had the premiere with a new big band project, the
PRAED orchestra, November 3rd 2018 in Sharjah with the extended line up of Nadah el Shazly, Maurice Louca, Hans Koch,
Martin Küchen, Christine Kazairan, Ute Wassermann, Alan Bishop, Radwan Moumneh, Sam Shalabi, Michael Zerang and
Khaled Yassine. In 2022 the PRAED Orchestra was invited to the Summer Bummer Festival in Antwerb, Belgium
with additional musicians and a slightly different cast.
The band’s body of work mainly explores the terrain of Arabic popular music (“Shaabi”) and its interconnectedness with other
psychedelic and hypnotic musical genres in the world, such as free jazz, space jazz, and psychedelic rock among others. Since its
inception, Praed has shown a very keen interest in this music as a medium that reflects Egyptian society’s
complicated fabric. Through the research it conducted, the band began to discover a strong cultural connection between
“Shaabi” sounds and the “Mouled” music is played in religious trance ceremonies. The hypnotizing psychedelic effect that
was embedded in this genre also triggered thoughts around its similarity to other popular music in the world that employ
forms of sonic delirium, such as free jazz and psychedelic rock.
Bob Baker Fish wrote in the cyclic defrost on July 15th 2016 :
They also sound like nothing else around…anywhere. Sure they’re mining an exotic aspect of Arabic popular culture, yet they’re
doing so in such an exciting and groundbreaking way, referencing freejazz and electronic music and in the process creating new
and hitherto unknown genres of sound that sets the pulse racing.
You can’t ask for much more than that.....
And Cosmographer in 2023: Every record these masters put out is a masterpiece, and they keep getting better. Each track
sets up an undeniable groove that sucks you in and, before you know it, you are inhabiting this deep sound world
and forgetting about time itself. Utterly absorbing music.
Founded by Raed Yassin and Paed Conca in 2006, “Praed” is a band whose musical oeuvre can be described as a mixture
of Arabic popular music, free jazz, and electronics. In the same year, the band made its first public appearance in Al Maslakh
festival in Switzerland, immediately followed by a concert at the Irtijal festival in Beirut. Since then, the band has frequented
numerous international music festivals and toured intensively world-wide, spanning Japan, Egypt, North, Central and South
Africa, Europe and Canada.
Through these endeavors, the band has created a large global network with other renowned musicians as musical collaborators.
The band consists of two regular members: Raed Yassin playing keyboards, laptop, electronics and vocals; and Paed Conca on
clarinet, electric bass and electronics.
PRAED did also perform under the name PRAED PLUS or PRAED extended as a big band together with Axel Dörner, Johannes
Bauer, Hans Koch and Stephane Rives or with different cast. PRAED had the premiere with a new big band project, the
PRAED orchestra, November 3rd 2018 in Sharjah with the extended line up of Nadah el Shazly, Maurice Louca, Hans Koch,
Martin Küchen, Christine Kazairan, Ute Wassermann, Alan Bishop, Radwan Moumneh, Sam Shalabi, Michael Zerang and
Khaled Yassine. In 2022 the PRAED Orchestra was invited to the Summer Bummer Festival in Antwerb, Belgium
with additional musicians and a slightly different cast.
The band’s body of work mainly explores the terrain of Arabic popular music (“Shaabi”) and its interconnectedness with other
psychedelic and hypnotic musical genres in the world, such as free jazz, space jazz, and psychedelic rock among others. Since its
inception, Praed has shown a very keen interest in this music as a medium that reflects Egyptian society’s
complicated fabric. Through the research it conducted, the band began to discover a strong cultural connection between
“Shaabi” sounds and the “Mouled” music is played in religious trance ceremonies. The hypnotizing psychedelic effect that
was embedded in this genre also triggered thoughts around its similarity to other popular music in the world that employ
forms of sonic delirium, such as free jazz and psychedelic rock.
Bob Baker Fish wrote in the cyclic defrost on July 15th 2016 :
They also sound like nothing else around…anywhere. Sure they’re mining an exotic aspect of Arabic popular culture, yet they’re
doing so in such an exciting and groundbreaking way, referencing freejazz and electronic music and in the process creating new
and hitherto unknown genres of sound that sets the pulse racing.
You can’t ask for much more than that.....
And Cosmographer in 2023: Every record these masters put out is a masterpiece, and they keep getting better. Each track
sets up an undeniable groove that sucks you in and, before you know it, you are inhabiting this deep sound world
and forgetting about time itself. Utterly absorbing music.
1. Every artist and musician had what l call a “formation phase” where a blend of ideas,
experience as a listener and will to get into action helped to start the activity in music. What
was that and by whom and what were you inspired by?
We are two individuals that come from very different backgrounds, but what brought us
together is our interest in very diverse genres of music, that extend from ethnic folk music to
jazz, free jazz, electronic music, psychedelic rock, pop, soundtracks, and free improvisation.
2. The current status of recorded music in terms of distribution is an uneasy one. How do
you feel about this?
Indeed, with the economic crises in the world it is difficult to foresee the future of music
distribution, but we still do our best to make our work happen as musicians by producing and
releasing albums.
3. How did you start your collaboration and how it all come to fruition in terms of music that
you composed?
PRAED is a band that was formed in 2006 after we met in Beirut during the Irtijal Festival.
It’s a project with a very diverse musical language. It started with our common interest in
improvised music, collage, electronic music, and that extended towards what we now call
psychedelic Shaabi, with influences of free jazz and Arabic music.
4. How the life of a musician in Lebanon looks like these days?
Lebanon has always had an interesting music scene, but this has historically been affected
by the political and economic situtation. But musicians in Lebanon are resisting, and they are
very active, amid all this chaos and destruction.
5. It is not difficult to put your music in a political context but how would you like it to be
seen?
This is a difficult question to answer, given the status of the world nowadays. We always try
to comment on the world around us in the topics we tackle in each album, each
performance. I think different people at different times regard our music differently in different
spaces, which is what makes it interesting.
6. What are the compositional ideas you are using for the creative process in your music?
It’s a long process for us to reach the final outcome of a piece. There’s a lot of back and forth
between us. Every few months we get together for intensive sessions, where we reshuffle
ideas and try out things that each person thought of on his own. We try not to follow one
formula, just to keep the process surprising and interesting for us.
7. Plans for the future?
This year we are going to release a double LP album by PRAED Orchestra! on the London-
based label Descripant. Next year we are releasing our new studio album Al-Wahem, which
is currently in the mixing phase. 2026 is actually PRAED’s 20th anniversary, and we are
planning several tours around the world throughout the year.
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