Zuli Lambda

Zuli's widest-reaching and most ambitious album to date, 'Lambda' is a conspicuous left turn for the Berlinbased Egyptian producer. Draped in gauzy, granulated textures and woven with enigmatic vocal flourishes from collaborators Michaelbrailey, Coby Sey and Abdullah Miniawy, it's a vivid, soul-searching set of polychromatic reflections that sets fire to the boundaries between ambient, trip-hop, industrial music, chamber pop and symphonic noise.

In some aspects, 'Lambda' reveals Zuli's softer side; gone are the earth-shaking chopped rhythms and stopstart outbursts of corroded static that characterised his last full length, 'Digla Dive - Live'. But peer beneath the brain burrowing vocal melodies, mangled instrumental loops, anxious poems and subtle, harmonic synth washes and a new kind of intensity lurks in the shadows.

Since his early releases on Lee Gamble's UIQ label and his 2018 breakout 'Trigger Finger', Zuli has notched up major global acclaim for his futuristic, kinetic musical diversions. He cut his teeth supplying beats to local rappers back home in Cairo, soon shifting his attention to the city's burgeoning dance underground, promoting events, DJing prolifically and tirelessly supporting the scene's most experimental fringe. In 2019, Zuli teamed up with Rama to curate the irsh series of video transmissions, evolving the project into a label shortly afterwards. And now situated in Berlin, the duo have extended the concept to encompass an ongoing sequence of genre-averse club nights. All this experience and constant creative motion is etched into the foundations of 'Lambda'. It's an album that plays liberally with euphoria, but feels constantly precarious, intrepidly peering out from its tense internal world.