Ta2reeban is a hardcore punk band from Beirut.

Cedral (= cedar grove, cedar forest), an ad hoc international mixed-generation music-and-voice quartet convened for the festival, appears for the first time at Irtijal 2026. Over the course of their set a 22-page poem (syllabary) is sounded in full by two voices, beginning at either end to meet in the middle: “…we have a lot of room to play with pacing and space, echo, overlap, different levels of comprehension, legibility and transparency against opacity.” 

Cedrik Fermont’s vast genre-dissolving sonic experimentation, from instrumental acoustics and field recordings, dance musics and noise, into extended electronic composition, joins with Ralph Chbeir’s détourning of the electric bass guitar from its prototypical rhythmic-centric grounding into rich compositional fields.  Sarah Huneidi, with sound-works under the name xlmxkhfi (al-makhfi, “the hidden one”) and collaborative work in poetry and electronic music as founding member of Shatr Collective, brings her speaking voice to help sound San Francisco-based poet and longtime arts organizer Steve Dickison’s poem / performance text, a listening to and observing, in minutiae (as syllabary) and from afar, this world’s messages: 

…

earth said of earth you have to stop before stopping stops

Rayyan Abdelkhalek is a translator, writer, and DJ from Mount Lebanon. His work revolves around collectivity, rebellion, and divine materializations in everyday life. Omar Itani is a noise artist and sound designer based in Beirut, Lebanon. Samira Makki is an independent researcher largely studying cultural labor and mostly writing about film.

With Anthony Sahyoun and Sharif Sehnaoui on guitars, and Malek Rizkallah and Akram Hajj on drums, G2D2 explores the tension between rhythm and abstraction. Interlocking percussion, distorted guitar textures and sudden shifts in density generate a constantly evolving sound—moving between driving momentum, abrasive noise and moments of fragile restraint.

Following a series of appearances within Beirut’s independent music scene, Boond! contributed the track “TQSOD” to Land 02, a benefit compilation curated by Tunefork Studios and Beirut Synth Center in 2026. The track was subsequently featured in a Lebanon-focused broadcast on NTS Radio.

Firstly emerging in their teens under the previous band name “Ramaad,” their releases added a distinct voice to the collective chorus of the post-2011 Egyptian spoken word movement. After the initial wave of activity, the two artists took an extended hiatus, each pouring their creative energies into separate projects and refining their respective crafts. Their reunion is not a continuation of past work, but a deliberate step into new artistic territory. Having matured individually, Moussa and Shaat have converged with a clarity of purpose that they identify as the first true incarnation of their sound. Mi3raj’s “Callings of The Owed” feels like a debut of a fully realized collaborative identity informing a unique auditory world.

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.

june as is a Beirut-based DJ and synthesist. His sets move between club pressure and exploratory drift, rooted in deep listening, digging and auditory experience. His arrangements cut across industrial, bass, broken rhythms, and raw electronics, with an instinct for tension, release, and long-form storytelling. As the co-founder of Frequent Defect, a Beirut-based artist collective, June’s practice was shaped by contexts where risk, listening, and adaptability carry forward. His sets reward curiosity, moving away from predictability toward atmosphere, density, and narratives without fixed meshes.