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Second release on Lee Gamble’s UIQ label and the debut from Cairo’s Ahmed El Ghazoly a.k.a. ZULI deploying forward mutations of jungle and slow techno somewhere between Urban Tribe, Kaman Leung, Beneath...

Ghazoly is a co-founder of VENT, a music-space-turned-club-night in Cairo with a sister night and record label based in London. With his debut EP he has conceived a unique sound straddling slow techno and jungle with squawking, alien electronics and smeared microtonal melody in a familiar spirit to his label boss’ psychoacoustic dancefloor projections.

At the top of the EP he offers a knuckle-cracking Robotic Handshake in 4D synching neck-snap sub knocks with shimmering gamelan tones and gremlin voices like a lost Dabrye bomb, before seducing us with the creamed microtonal timbre of Compactpact and resetting the levels to Beneath-style bleep & bass pressure with 131001G.

However, the biggest highlight appears on the B-side opener Robotic Jabs in 4D, where desiccated 2-step jungle patterns spark at the core of a lush, fluid synth swell like some nerve-pinched Nubian Mindz reverie, whereas the decelerated thump of Ahmed? trades in STL-style dub-house triplets, and Dr. Beckett convulses like a Gantz riddim undergoing an ayahuasca ceremony.

In all, a strong, striking debut from a highly individual new voice on the scene

The Cenozoic

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