Neam and Alaa met in Summer 2025 and immediately collided in questions of format: band or ensemble, piece or track, seated or standing audience. What emerged from these playful challenges was a meeting point between two very different musical worlds. The sound of the project grows from Neam’s classical heritage and personal identity, intertwined with Alaa’s pure electronic gear and experimental approach. Both artists share a deep inspiration from the musical landscapes of North Africa and South Asia—rhythms, modes, and songs that echo through their work not as a fusion, but as a living canon.
Neam Tarek is a Cairo-born harpist and performance artist. She studied harp at the University of Music and Performing Arts Graz, the Hanns Eisler School of Music Berlin, and the Leipzig University of Music and Theatre. In her artistic work, she combines classical harp, electronics, and political narration. She develops interdisciplinary formats that explore questions of identity, belonging, and social reality while simultaneously expanding the boundaries of musical performance formats. In addition to her artistic work, she is the founder and artistic director of Forte e.V., an association for alternative opera, music, and performing arts in Leipzig. Starting in September 2026, she will begin the Master’s program in Contemporary Music Performance & World Jazz at Berklee College of Music.
Rooted between Palestine and the SWANA region, Aladin is a DJ and sound-collector whose craft grows from a deep archive of cassettes, CDs, and vinyls. His musical awakening began in Palestine—shaped by traditional rhythms, collective resistance, and the connective force of sound that travels beyond borders. Forged in the electronic scenes of Haifa and Ramallah and evolving further in Germany since 2010, he co-founded Balout Krew ﻖﻳﺮﻓ طﻮﻠﺒﻟا, performing across major festivals such as Fusion and Nation of Gondwana, as well as international stages including Cairo Jazz Club, sharing lineups with artists like Acid Arab. In recent years, his devotion to synthesizers and analog textures has opened a new chapter—crafting original sonic worlds and releasing on labels such as Multiculti, Arabs Do It Better, and soon YukU (Prague).