kmru: logue

Nairobi-based electronic musician/sound-artist Joseph Kamaru -- KMRU -- signs to Injazero for the release of his beautiful compendium album Logue, comprising works from his past years of self-releasing. KMRU is uniquely positioned between the rarely-married cultures of ambient and African musics, entwining his compositions with field recordings from his native Kenya and the surrounding countries of East Africa. Though the deep, tectonic slowness of his music can be compared to the work of Lawrence English, William Basinski, Stars of the Lid, Kamaru's core culture shines through in a pure and singular way. Found within Logue's pieces are radiant melodic antiphony commonplace in African music, and huge, spacious drones that reveal his love for ambient soundscapes, held effortlessly together by field recordings and analog synthesis. "Every track reflects an event, space or location," Joseph writes. "The pieces are developed from field recordings, improvisation and spontaneity." Formed of tracks written from 2017 to 2019, Logue represents an artist not only in command of his form but also willing to develop and evolve, ready to deconstruct and radically refocus his music to explore new contours of experimental and ambient sound-design. Some of the earliest compositions found on Logue -- 2017's "Jinja Encounters", for example -- represent Joseph's first trips outside his homeland and the experience of new sights and new climates, full of discovery and wonder. The synth line of 2018's "Argon" pops and bubbles, mimicking bright African melodic vibrancy while a churning, static distortion threatens to breach the surface, revealing a sophisticated, measured understanding of texture and timbral interplay. "OT", from late 2018, jumps with joyous calls and deftly panned arrhythmic percussion, a new subtlety of light and dark gained from experience and experimentation. Consistent across the entire album is intensely personal and powerfully intuitive expression, crossing continental divides with a singular elegance. KMRU is a young, recently debuting musician. He has self-released on Bandcamp for the past few years, and 2020 saw his first official, international releases, including the scintillating Peel album for Editions Mego. Resident Advisor listed him in their "15 East African Artists You Need To Hear" article in 2018. He appears regularly at the celebrated Nyege Nyege Festival in Uganda, and has also performed at CTM Festival and Gamma Festival.