Komy

ZULI’s 2016 EP Bionic Ahmed, released on Lee Gamble’s UIQ label, was the first hint of the very loud, very experimental club music that would be coming out of Cairo over the next few years — think Abadir, 3Phaz, and Hassan Abou Alam. ZULI’s sound is probably the harshest of the lot, but what sets it apart most is the feeling that you’re always standing on tenuous ground, with beats changing dramatically or disappearing altogether to reveal something completely different — a chopped up vocal, a car-alarm synth, fragments of percussion, a powerful shot of bass. Komy was released in 2023 and is a collection of old tracks, some from as far back as 2016, which ZULI wanted to “get out there before releasing [his] newer stuff (and all proceeds go to Medical Aid for Palestinians). It captures the plethora of sounds that ZULI draws on, from techno to drum’n’bass, grime, and rap, which he mashes up in his signature, earth shattering style.