Over the past three years, ZULI has been working on his latest album, Lambda. The 13-track album features collaborations with MICHAELBRAILEY, Abdullah Miniawy, and Coby Sey. It is a moving record that navigates a unique set of sounds. Ahead of the release via Subtext, we spoke to ZULI about collaboration, the recording process, what Lambda means to him, and his creative path.

Listen to newly released single, ‘Trachea’ and pre-order the new album

https://zulimusic.bandcamp.com/track/trachea

Throughout Lambda you collaborate with a wide range of artists, how did you come about these collaborations and why is it important for you to collaborate? 

I wouldn’t say that it’s particularly important to me, neither is it unimportant; it’s just that I can’t really sing myself and sometimes I write music with vocals in mind. Maybe it’s because that’s how I started out as a musician for the first 10+ years; playing in bands and in duos with a vocalist or rapper. I only began making solo, instrumental music later on.

You have worked on Lambda for the best part of 3 years, what made you take a longer, patient approach to this album and how did you find working on it? 

The bulk of the album was written in just 5 months between October 2020 and March 2021. But, between acquiring guest vocals and tailoring/adjusting the instrumentals to them, the rest of the album took an additional 21 months to complete. It was during those 21 months between April 2021 and February 2023 that I wrote and released the Nashazphone record, the non-Lambda material for my A/V set with Omar El Sadek, the first 2 installments of the H Loops (fka Habibi Loops) and my upcoming “club” record. 

Relocating to Berlin in early 2023 also slowed things down a bit because of all the traveling and moving between sublets, and the fact that I didn’t have my studio anymore, but I quickly adjusted to becoming a kitchen-table-and-headphones producer. It took ages to find a label too, so until I met James and we eventually set a deadline, everything was moving super slowly.

You have written Lambda across a few places, conceived in Cairo and Finished in Berlin. How does a place have impact on your music and how do you navigate writing an album varied places and spaces? 

Writing in different spaces and places was a big part of this album, but not for the obvious reason of my relocating to Berlin. After finishing the All Caps EP I was going through the old post-partum depression of finishing a project, and I could not stand being in my home studio anymore; that whole environment with the pro headphones and pro studio monitors and office chair and stuff, all felt too clinical; like I was obliged to be in there. So I would just hang out on my living room couch with my laptop and bluetooth headphones and write what eventually became the building blocks of Lambda. I feel like it’s easier for me to come up with new ideas in a more casual setting like that. The studio is better for finishing ideas. 

The effects of the outside world and what country I’m in, etc., probably have more of a wider, more long-term effect on my sound. My stuff has more to do with what’s going on “inside” rather than the outside world; more to do with the psychological, I guess.

What is Lambda to you? 

Lambda, to me, is the space between two extreme states where you’re uncertain which way you’re about to go. It’s the internal forces that influence where you end up going in the end.\

With Lambda about to be released, what are your movements now and how do you wish to continue your creative path?

I don’t tend to think too much about my path, I just make whatever music comes out of me when I’m “in the studio”. Most of the time, after I finish working on a project, I find myself making a completely different sound. This is what happened with Lambda; before it was the All Caps EP, and after it is an aggressive, more rhythmic/clubby record that should be out before the end of the year. I’ve practically finished that one already and now wrapping up the 2nd H Loops (which is a hiphop mixtape) and have started on other stuff that sounds closer to Lambda.