Joseph Kamaru, the Nairobi-based sound artist and producer behind the KMRU moniker, is also the grandson of the influential and political musician of the same name and considered a “king” of Kikuyu benga. In 2018, KMRU started reissuing his grandfather’s records shortly after he passed away, and in a feature on Kamaru’s reissued catalog, KMRU spoke to his conversations with his grandfather about music. In terms of sound and with two generations between the two, it is hard to imagine they would have crossed paths naturally. In their talks just before Kamaru’s passing, KMRU’s grandfather consistently encouraged him to “stay honest” in his music, no matter what, a simple idea that carries more weight, and is easier to rehash in practice when it comes from a blood relative from the same field.
Peel by KMRU
KMRU, along with Uganda’s Nyege Nyege collective, is part of an expanding electronic scene in East Africa. The region has seen an exponential growth in software and internet access, especially Kenya which has one of the world’s fastest data connection speeds, exceeding the United States and South Korea. In turn, artists have adopted and incorporated music software into their music and developed their own ways of using them, infusing their productions with traditional rhythms and instrumentations of the area. In contrast to the energetic Nyege Nyege Tapes output and many artists sprouting from this scene, KMRU creates ambient music with slow beats and dub inflections in the vein of Detroit’s echospace label or early Andy Stott EPs, gleaning from his home country’s environmental sounds as much as it’s musical traditions.
opaquer by KMRU
Two weeks apart, KMRU releases the double-LP Peel and single-LP opaquer. Both albums, like the majority of KMRU’s catalog, contain deep and repetitive and captivating drone and sub bass sounds with subtle, microscopic inflections that rewards engaged listens. Although release within a month, the two have their differences. The pieces on Peel follow waves of repetitive, near-drones, surrounded by smaller outgrowths and separate, subtle manipulations. It could be analogous to a large whale swimming through a deep ocean with trailing schools of feeder fish living off the plankton its body creates. Opaquer also limits the bandwidth of its sound, focusing primarily on one reverberating sound source, usually a field recording, with smaller, electronic supporting tones. But opaquer alters its focus and doesn’t necessarily encourage the sensation of drone; the sounds, more decipherable however ambiguous they may be, live in the reverberations they leave behind, amplifying their contours and giving the impression of a whole, contiguous, solid sound mass.
Something that can define an effective ambient record is an ability to disintegrate the perimeter of the record itself and the outside world. Listening to either Peel or opaquer, say, outside at night, the albums are not met with too much interference, maybe the occasional passing car, laboring window air conditioner, or floating conversation from a neighbors’ windows. But these outside sounds incidentally bleed into the pieces and embed into what KMRU creates, becoming an unintended part of the composition. The wide-open nature of the pieces KMRU creates meet these outside sounds halfway, allowing a lively, tangible commingling, giving you an impression that the pieces on opaquer and Peel have an inherent generative property.
