Now the manager of Kampala’s Boutiq Studios, Zilla returns to Hakuna Kulala with his eagerly-awaited debut album “Ekizikiza Mubwengula”, a labyrinthine album that weaves freewheeling dance sub-genres into a bejewelled tapestry, signalling a path to the future. There’s the cybernetic ‘nuum funk of dBridge, Empty-set’s overdriven, cacophonous anxiety, the hyper-paced airlock club of Shanghai’s Hyph11E and the confrontational intensity of Dreamcrusher; everything is melted into a groove-fwd whole that’s tough to resist.
Tangling trap into slippery, atmospheric doom-step on ‘Buziba’, experimenting with uptempo, Slikback-es-que rhythmic complexity on ‘Tension’ and reshaping noisy industrial ambience on ‘Shots’, Zilla uses the album to continuously challenge expectations, folding sounds in on themselves Inception-style and allowing fresh rhythms, textures and forms to peek through. It’s a bold step from a central character in East Africa’s rapidly-growing stable of paradigm-shifting experimental club producers.
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16 Restive Plaggona - Restive Plaggona
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17 Irreversible Entanglements – Open the Gates
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18 Scorn – The Only Place
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19 Alexis Marshall - House of Lull House of When
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20 Crystal Geometry - Distressing Visions
