Beirut born visual artist and vocalist Raed Yassin and Bern born improvisor and composer Paed Conca formed PRAED in 2006. The project is rooted in the duo’s eagerness to explore the Egyptian popular music genre of shaabi – as a reflection of Egypt’s social structures, and how it relates to other trance inducing styles of music. PRAED’s performances seek to demonstrate shaabi's “interconnectedness with other psychedelic and hypnotic musical genres in the world, such as free jazz, space jazz and psychedelic rock among others”.

Core members Yassin and Conca have variously collaborated with many musicians and experimented with different formations of PRAED over the years. In November 2018, the duo premiered PRAED Orchestra! – their most expanded line-up to date – featuring Nadah el Shazly, Maurice Louca, Hans Koch, Martin Küchen, Christine Kazairan, Ute Wassermann, Alan Bishop, Radwan Moumneh, Sam Shalabi, Michael Zerang and Khaled Yassine. The collective were recorded live at Calligraphy Square in Sharjah, UAE. The resulting PRAED Orchestra! album Live In Sharjah will be released on 9 November via Rabih Beaini's Morphine Records, available to pre-order now.

Read an interview with PRAED's Raed Yassin in The Wire 442. Subscribers can also read via the digital archive.