GreedyforBestMusic-Praed-DoomsdaySurvivalKit-Akuphone-RaphaelleMacaron

Doomsday Survival Kit

14/12/2018Lebanese Psych-Duo Praed Unleashes Another Batch Of Electronic Chaabi
 

Yes, we are entranced. Initially drawn in by Lebanese artist Raphaëlle Macaron's trippy cover design, we gave the new Akuphone-release a concentrated listen and were absolutely wowed. "Doomsday Survival Kit" is just what these chaotic times demand and Lebanese duo PRAED timely delivers its fourth album to answer the call. As expressed in the liner notes, "this is the ultimate kit to calmly prepare for the sixth extinction!". Seems about right. 

Paed Conca and Raed Yassin deliver a heady, electronically enhanced take on and "raging interpretation of" chaabi (meaning folk), which refers to different genres of popular Arab music typically found in North Africa and frequently heard at weddings or festive celebrations. Aided by synthesizers, drum machines, samples and other devices, the duo mesmerisingly explores the genre's "interconnectedness with other psychedelic and hypnotic musical genres in the world, such as free jazz, space jazz and psychedelic rock among others," basically all things trance-inducing. 

Founded in 2006, Paed Conca (on clarinet, electric bass and electronics) and Raed Yassin (on keyboards, laptop, electronics and vocals) have toured the globe extensively, regularly taking unsuspecting crowds by surprise and quickly establishing a sort of sonic delirium (positively speaking), as Paed's clarinet and Raed's vocals take center stage. It all sounds so familiar and uncannily fresh at the same time and we quite frankly cannot say we've heard anything quite like it before. What a trip?!

You can stream/buy the album in full here on Bandcamp or listen to the album preview in the SoundCloud player above. A limited pink vinyl + poster edition of 300 releases on January 14th, 2019. 

AUTHOR: Lev Nordstrom