Zuli

Ahmed El Ghazoly, operating under the alias ZULI from his base in Cairo, shapes fractured and warped experimental electronic music by twisting together techno, jungle, grime, and hip-hop. As an Egyptian multi-instrumentalist and DJ, he co-established the collectives Kairo Is Koming (KIK) and AHOMA, both devoted to underground electronic musicians and visual artists. Early ZULI EPs such as the 2016 release Bionic Ahmed leaned openly into club rhythms, yet the 2018 full-length Terminal shifted toward fractured abstraction while drawing in vocals from numerous rappers and singers active in Cairo’s underground scene.

Between 2013 and 2015 Ahmed El Ghazoly and Asem Tag ran the Cairo club VENT, later repurposing the name for a club night and festival. VENT and KIK expanded their programming into Europe, and UIQ—the imprint run by Lee Gamble—issued ZULI’s debut EP Bionic Ahmed in early 2016. Toward the close of that year ZULI began hosting a monthly NTS Radio program. His second EP, Numbers, surfaced in 2017; the following year Haunter Records released Trigger Finger, whose blown-out jungle and murky techno gave way later in 2018 to Terminal, the ambitious double-LP shaped by El Ghazoly’s encounters in his home city. Experimental-music outlets responded strongly, most notably The Wire, which placed the album second on its year-end list.