Ambient

full moon in virgo

sound design

Mixes

KMRU is a star in the making. In 2020, the Kenyan artist released three LPs – 'Peel', 'Jar' and 'Opaquer' – with the former landing via Viennese experimental imprint Editions Mego. All three releases – plus last month’s album, 'Logue' – signal an artist with a clear focus and boundless vision. 

Given his compelling approach to composition and arrangements, we thought we’d tap Kamaru for a specialist mix devoted to the sort of leftfield, experimental and ambient sounds he’s been quietly fashioning into something that sounds entirely unique to him. Kamaru’s mix showcases an array of tracks produced by Black artists from Africa, and the diaspora.

KMRU plays Intonal Festival 2021, which runs from 16–20 June.

Check out the full tracklist on crackaud.io: crackm.ag/35hR7tF

Still Independent. Help us keep it that way: crackm.ag/support

Leftfield sounds from Africa and the diaspora – Mixed by KMRU

Further Information: bleep.com/features/bleep-mix-211-kmru

To celebrate the release of the Tresor 30 box set we have a special mix from KMRU. 

"A contemplative dive into the sonic remembering, the mix to me evokes the sense or remembrance or trying to remember, featuring artists and musics that I've been listening and remembering in the past months. The mix was recorded on Ableton and a Push 2." - KMRU

Bleep Mix sound files

Bleep Mix #211 - KMRU

Experimental sound artist KMRU(@kamarujoseph)is a master of quietness. His music is as much about empty space as it is the delicate field recordings that fill it in. The Kenyan artist has been perfecting this balancing act from his base in Berlin, most notably on 2020 full-length Peel. It's a record of slowly unfolding synth beauty and drawn-out drone mindfulness. Soft focus chords bleed and blend into one another like different shades of watercolour paint and the environmental nature of the sound sources lends it a gorgeously natural atmosphere.
For this week's most meditative mix, KMRU puts together an hour of soothing sound in a painterly fashion. It is unhurried but always going somewhere thanks to a gentle underlapping rhythm, expansive synth arc or little hiss of static. What sounds like distant vocal calls drift in and out of the mix which at times is like a recording from the furthest recess of the cosmos, at others the pleasant ambiance you might hear out of a Berlin window on a sunny afternoon.

Tracklist

Dekmantel Podcast 378 - KMRU

Umfang - Chant

Pre-order available now. Color copies exclusively available for Important Records mailorder customers. 

Multivocal is a polyphonic maze that unfolds to both the body and the mind. A generative take on rhythm and spacial perception, it presents the same events in different configurations. 

The two pieces of the album, "Solid of Revolution" and "Never Odd or Even", mirror each other with the same principle in different musical scales: steady pulses with one millisecond difference in tempo start beating together, then slowly phase organically and progress into ever-changing rhythmic patterns until they finally return to unison. 

Multivocal emphasizes shifts of attention in the listener’s experience and plays with the expectations that frame it. Originally conceived for quadraphonic sound, the pieces reveal the many different aspects and modes of perception that can arise within the same sequence of notes. In this way Multivocal is influenced by concepts of gestalt psychology such as multistable perception - a term describing ambiguous patterns that offer multiple interpretations at once. The minimalism and repetitive quality of the music also refers to trance-inducing and collective music practices, driven by the strong bodily affects induced through the use of rhythms.

Those two compositions were recorded live during Ars Electronica 2018 at the occasion of the sleeping event « Sonatas for Sleep/less », curated by multimedia artist Shu Lea Cheang and cultural theorist Matthew Fuller.

Jessica Ekomane - Multivocal - LP - PRE-ORDER

Forever is in multiplicity and mutation. Musician and visual artist Nicola Tirabasso (VISIO), together with Haunter founders Daniele Guerrini and Francesco Birsa Alessandri called for a collective effort in order to celebrate these elements of experience. In opposition to linear notions of time itself. An attempt to let perceptions of future and past bleed together, to establish every moment as an infinite process of consumption and re-generation. A compilation of 33 artists, each contributing in their own peculiar style, adding their own blends to the palette and exposing the lineage of their work. It is precisely to state that the perennial immanence of difference is what constitutes the basis for true unity, that the curators have grouped an utterly diverse cast of contributors, whose output strikes a vastity of moods and textures, and grows out of very distinct intentionalities and backgrounds. Making kin without borders, letting mutual support evolve into a chimeric infinity.

Curated by Nicola Tirabasso and Haunter Records
Mastered by Jo at Tapewave Mastering
Artwork by Katja Novitskova & Kareem Lotfy
Cat. No. HR024 – All rights reserved.
℗ & © Haunter Records 2019
www.haunterrecords.com

Pubblicato da:
Haunter Records
Data di uscita:
4 Ottobre 2019
Copyright P:
℗ Haunter Records 2019

Maxwell Sterling - DESIGNER DIRGE

feat. Kenichi Iwasa, Kuljit Bhamra

Beatrice Dillon - Workaround
Format: LP / DL
Cat.No: PAN 106
Release Date: 07 February 2020
Purchase: bit.ly/33ISoYr

‘Workaround’ is the lucidly playful and ambitious solo debut album by rhythmobsessive musician and DJ, Beatrice Dillon for PAN. It combines her love of UK club music’s syncopated suss and Afro- Caribbean influences with a gamely experimental approach to modern composition and stylistic fusion, using inventive sampling and luminous mixing techniques adapted from modern pop to express fresh ideas about groove-driven music and perpetuate its form with timeless, future-proofed clarity.

Recorded over 2017-2019 between studios in London, Berlin and New York, ‘Workaround’ renders a hypnotic series of polymetric permutations at a fixed 150bpm tempo. Mixing meticulous FM synthesis and harmonics with crisply edited acoustic samples from a wide range of guests including UK Bhangra pioneer Kuljit Bhamra (tabla); Pharoah Sanders Band’s Jonny Lam (pedal steel guitar); techno innovators Laurel Halo (synth/vocal) and Batu (samples); Senegalese Griot Kadialy Kouyaté (Kora), Hemlock’s Untold and new music specialist Lucy Railton (cello); amongst others, Dillon deftly absorbs their distinct instrumental colours and melody into 14 bright and spacious computerised frameworks that suggest immersive, nuanced options for dancers, DJs and domestic play.

‘Workaround’ evolves Dillon’s notions in a coolly unfolding manner that speaks directly to the album’s literary and visual inspirations, ranging from James P. Carse’s book ‘Finite And Infinite Games’ to the abstract drawings of Tomma Abts or Jorinde Voigt as well as painter Bridget Riley’s essays on grids and colour. Operating inside this rooted but mutable theoretical wireframe, Dillon’s ideas come to life as interrelated, efficient patterns in a self-sufficient system.

With a naturally fractal-not-fractional logic, Dillon’s rhythms unfold between unresolved 5/4 tresillo patterns, complex tabla strokes and spark-jumping tics in a fluid, tactile dance of dynamic contrasts between strong/light, sudden/restrained, and bound/free made in reference to the notational instructions of choreographer Rudolf Laban. Working in and around the beat and philosophy, the album’s freehand physics contract and expand between the lissom rolls of Bhamra’s tabla in the first, to a harmonious balance of hard drum angles and swooping FM synth cadence featuring additional synth and vocal from Laurel Halo in ‘Workaround Two’, while the extruded strings of Lucy Railton create a sublime tension at the album’s palatecleansing denouement, triggering a scintillating run of technoid pieces that riff on the kind of swung physics found in Artwork’s seminal ‘Basic G’, or Rian Treanor’s disruptive flux with a singularly tight yet loose motion and infectious joy.

Crucially, the album sees Dillon focus on dub music’s pliable emptiness, rather than the moody dematerialisation of reverb and echo. The substance of her music is rematerialised in supple, concise emotional curves and soberly freed to enact its ideas in balletic plies, rugged parries and sweeping, capoeira-like floor action. Applying deeply canny insight drawn from her years of practice as sound designer, musician and hugely knowledgable/intuitive DJ, ‘Workaround’ can be heard as Dillon’s ingenious solution or key to unlocking to perceptions of stiffness, darkness or grid-locked rigidity in electronic music. And as such it speaks to an ideal of rhythm-based and experimental music ranging from the hypnotic senegalese mbalax of Mark Ernestus’ Ndagga Rhythm Force, through SND and, more currently, the hard drum torque of DJ Plead; to adroitly exert the sensation of weightlessness and freedom in the dance and personal headspace.

The album is mixed by James Rand and mastered by Rashad Becker at Dubplates & Mastering. Artwork by Thomas Ruff, layout by Johannes Schnatmann & Bill Kouligas.

Workaround

Beatrice Dillon - Square Fifths (PAN 106)

From the new LP, Excision After Love Collapses: frktl.bandcamp.com/album/excision-after-love-collapses

Excision After Love Collapses

FRKTL — Excision After Love Collapses

A dream sequence of ambient and drone from the Nairobi DJ and producer.

Read more here: https://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?id=740

@kamarujoseph

Resident Advisor podcast

RA.740 KMRU

For our 14th mix, we have ourselves a deep and veritably horizontal slide into weirdness and wonder, artfully crafted by Cleveland’s Kiernan Laveux. We’re back with Moon Roq mix 15 in just one month’s time. Remastered in March 2024.

Find out more about Kiernan here: https://soundcloud.com/kiernan-laveaux

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www.instagram.com/themoonroqexperience
www.facebook.com/themoonroqexperience

Moon Roq 014 | Kiernan Laveaux

Sweet tunes for you ~~ November 2020's very own.. enjoy ;)

Fifth World w/ Ian Kim Judd on NTS Radio ~ 11.25.2020

The moon waxes into shiny illumination under Gemini tonight and @silver-side-pony has mixed up an hour of reflective and radiant ambient, perfectly facilitating ritual and release. “In a year that feels suspended in motion (not so much surreal as hyper-real), notifications on Bandcamp Friday have become a small joy.” True to that sentiment and full of gorgeous musical morsels from friends of theirs, this mix oozes warmth, stoking the flames of collective inspiration, community and connectivity. Exactly what we've all been hungry for, and what's been keeping us afloat. Thank-you dear Laurel.

Tracklist:
Vase - Mother Trilogy w Amelia Emma Forrest - T4
Ben Bertrand - Morton and György In The Battista Mist
NAP - Íntima
Exael - Citrus
Ulla - Stunned Suddenly 
Angel Bat Dawid - Destination (Dr. Yusef Lateef) 
Ben Bondy - tissue
Pole - Evelyse
Ian Chang - ASMR
Actress - Futureproofing
 Gavilán Rayna Russom - B3
Actress - Hubble
God 69 - BABYLUV
Pontiac Streator & Ulla Straus - Item 6
Mister Water Wet - Cuevas
Totems - Replicated
The Pleasure magenta - Shavings
Vase - Pendulos
Tsegue-Maryam Guebrou - Homesickness
Erika de Casier - No Butterflies, No Nothing 
Pillow Queen - Burns Me Up
Ben Bondy - Cibilian Trance
Dark Arts - Lament
LVJ - Restart
Beverly Glenn Copeland - La Vita

Photo: Louise Pain

Side Pony @ SWOON | 29.11.2020

Good news! Our friend Space Ghost just graced us with a stoic and restorative recording for the 61st instalment of Pacific Spirit. Bundle up nice and warm and take this one for a stroll and be on the look out for new music from Space Ghost landing on Pacific Rhythm in early 2021.

Tracklist: Earth, Wind & Fire - Power (SG Edit)
Hotspring - Obit For Sunshade
Space Ghost - Forest Dub
Seph & Morgan - Phaseolus Vulgaris
Magnétophonique - Hopeless Tropicalia
R. Carlos Nakai - Unfolding Sky
Joe Hisaishi - Flower Moment (SG Edit)
Fools - Deefyfe
Seph & Morgan - Senator Gary
Mokona - Natalie’s Aquarium Lab 
Joe Hiaishi - Shiroi Joou (SG Edit)
Garrett - Conflicted Lovers
Space Ghost - Save Point
Space Ghost - Twilight Swim
Oneohtrix Point Never - Disconnecting Entirely
Mokona - Now Approaching Stratum Limit
Space Ghost - Cosmic Cave
Bedouin Ascent - Joyriding III
Irresistible Force - Natural Frequency (Remix)
Khotin - Groove 32
Space Ghost - Mind Mirror
Space Ghost - Warped Images
Space Ghost - Jungle Systems
Haircuts For Men - 間違って見える
KWJAZ - Once In Babylon (Excerpt)
Woo - Whiich Ever Way You Are Going, You Are Going Wrong

Pacific Spirit No. 61 | Space Ghost

@khotin has served up a free flowing range of multi-genre experiments since announcing himself with a soft-hued acid album on 1080p back in 2014. Now involved with running Normals Welcome as well as releasing on DFA, Pacific Rhythm and Public Release, his music is united by a distinctive take on melody, post-club melancholy and love for downtempo sounds. He crafts blissful songs filled with nostalgic feelings and is exactly the sort of artist in whom we can all find some sort of solace.

And this mix is a perfect tonic for reluctant bodies with its slowly cascading rhythms and soft focus melodies serving as a gentle New Year wakener. It's laced with perfectly dreamy pads and ramshackle drums that are never too forceful but always compelling. While often invitingly sombre in mood, the clouds do break along the way to bring moments of real lightness and joy just when you need it.

Dekmantel Podcast

Dekmantel Podcast 314 - Khotin

Kenyan artist KMRU records a deep, transportive mix of ambient electronics, rustling beats and found sounds for the Fresh Kicks series

Interview & tracklist: https://djmag.com/features/fresh-kicks-147-kmru

Fresh Kicks 147: KMRU

j (@ju_ca, faene, picnic, daisart), is a local Melbourne artist and an architect of all things downtempo, refined & tranquil

A quick scroll through j's soundcloud will find you in a peaceful oasis of non-dancefloor oriented music. j has named this mix “sitting in the moonlit grass” for friends Ryan and Ken, who are based in Kansas City. 
'It’s mostly leaning on sounds, ideas, thoughts, and feelings shared between us and a release we all worked on together as “picnic”…'

you can listen to picnic here <3  https://daisart.bandcamp.com/album/picnic 

Enjoy this beautiful one on a sunny or rainy day wherever you are !

Thanks j! 

Downloads enabled

Animix Twenty Seven: j

CCL - sit on my interface (part 1/2)

Name: Amelia Holt (@ameliaholt)
Pronouns:  She/ Her
Location:  Texas / Brooklyn

Influences: My muses 👑, Grace Gracious, Helen K & Noff Weezy, all the freaky Cronenberg movies and all the cuties out there doing music things ❤️ Shy, Deep Creep, Leesh & Daisychain, Fart in the Club, CCL, NAP, Vani-T, Abnama, Ema, Benoit B, Byron and the Temple crew in Montreal.

Affiliations/Residencies/Projects: In Your Dirty Ears/ Public Records/ Uwu Dust Bath

Favorite Quote:  “Silly rabbit, Trix are for… kids”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5Jnw4IsztU

Advice for the DJs, producers and artists of our community: Practice & record your sessions, its always good to listen back and see where improvements can be made. 

With this mix Amelia asks to please learn more about and consider donating to: HIP (Hispanics In Philanthropy) https://hiponline.org/about/

Daisychain

Daisychain 161 - Amelia Holt

Interview:  http://truantsblog.com/2021/truancy-volume-273-joe-delon/

Access the download and tracklist on our Patreon: patreon.com/truants

Soundcloud: @joedelon

KMRU - a vortex unto themselves

c-