Splitting open the ordinary into sublime imaginations, this compact gem from Cairo’s ZULI bursts at the seams. A melodic fragment, tapping in a field recording, a dialog, a street argument–everything gets unfolded into another unseen dimension. It might be the musical pause you need right now, and hey Berlin, ZULI is live tonight (as am I) so there’s a chance to catch this energy in person.
ZULI’s LP on Subtext from last year, Lambda, is a must-listen if you haven’t heard it. But I adore these sorts of inventive marginalia for their own merits, climbing out of that earlier corpus like a Medieval dragon doodle.
These bits hop between Cairo and Berlin. Ludwig Wandinger shows off his virtuoso improvisatory chops by reworking “Ast,” the words from Cobey Sey becoming a percussive, generative framework. It’s a sourdough starter making new bread as much as a remix.
Elysian Blue is a haunting moment of tranquility that gets torn apart in the middle, revealing ZULI’s hard-metal digital signature for a moment, like etching away at a layer of paint to get at something beneath.
“Care” is the essential cornerstone. I’ve found in my disarray lately that listening to on-the-grid metrical time can be almost jarring, uncomfortable. Here, ZULI’s rhythms fall like speech, like unfolding blossoms, without imposing a narrative on your brain. I don’t want to romanticize noise pollution or the stress of cities, not in the least. (They’d take away my acoustic ecology membership card.) Still, if you ever found the chaotic symphony of urban sound to be a cure for loneliness, and silence an ear-ringing alien experience, maybe you can relate to that home-y feeling you get after city-dwelling for extended periods.
Here, the sound out the window creates a structure, an apartment block where all the accumulated feelings can live:
The emotive “Care” centers around a field recording of ZULI tapping on the neck of an unplugged guitar. The field recorder was at the other end of his home studio in Cairo, right by the window, so when a car-crash-turned-street-fight broke out, the whole thing was captured and integrated into the track.
Melancholy and layered, this release fits the mood of the moment.
Catch ZULI tonight if you’re in Berlin (I start so–come early):
Dakn داكنْ presents: ZULI, TUFI, PKIRN, Softmatter
More ZULI music:
https://zulimusic.bandcamp.com
Album cover [above] by Kasia Kim Zacharko.
Mastered by James Ginzburg.