Experimental - 6

El Invisible Peso de la Luz

Misa Sónica

Tidal Memory Exo

Alloy Flea

Twin heavyweights Kevin Richard Martin (The Bug) and Joseph Kamaru (KMRU) unite for Disconnect, a powerful study of dread, hope, and profound sonics that marries depth-trawling dub with Kamaru’s voice, ambient sensibilities, and negative space.

Kevin Martin first became aware of Kenyan ambient musician KMRU “watching the short 2020 documentary Under The Bridge,” he tells us. “Which, aside from immediately finding Joseph's approach to sound and music so instantly impressive, I also found his spoken voice possessed a captivating, lilting, tonal quality, with his soft-spoken accent.” Following this, Martin dug into Kamaru’s records, and found not only a kindred spirit in skillful exploration of sonic space, but also a fan of The Bug. So began a mutually respectful relationship, initially held in Instagram DMs and reciprocal admiration for each other’s work and eventually blossoming into an invitation sent by Kevin to Joseph to collaborate on a new album.

The results - debut collaboration album Disconnect - collect a back-and-forth creative dialogue that started life in Martin’s studio. “I think I surprised Joseph by suggesting he contributes vocals,” Martin tells us. This ability to identify, isolate and exploit the nonstandard is a trait shared by both musicians and employed to devastating effect on Disconnect. Its vocals, sitting somewhere between intonation and spoken word, capture the ear and fizz with simmering power. They are indeed a surprise, coming from a musician specialising in instrumental, field recording-laced ambient musics, but tell intensely evocative stories, weaving poetry into the pair’s grandiose greyscale musical architecture.

The record is just as deep, dark, and arresting as we can expect from Kevin Richard Martin, following his acclaimed rescore of Solaris (released in 2021 on Phantom Limb) and a handful of self-released solo albums that explore a sound just as heavy as The Bug but at a menacingly slower pace. And it is just as evocative and unique as Kamaru’s KMRU canon, each object delicately and purposefully placed so the timbral mosaic builds with shimmering and hypnotic beauty.

KRM & KMRU - Differ

KRM & KMRU - Ark

The Tumbling Psychic Joy of Now

Ancient Model

Sepula Purm

Far from Above

Only Good Dreams for Me

The Open Window

Public Affairs

Preacher's Love

Ett vilt ljus

Hemliga eldar

Det blåser en vind genom världen, och det har det alltid gjort

Sökaren hittade

Brutal Threshold

Dirty Beaches - Time Washes Everything Away

Composed by Alex Zhang Hungtai for WHO IS ARTHUR CHU? feature documentary.

This Is Not My Country Part 2

from KR068 HÜMA UTKU - Gnosis (LP / DL) out on july 5th 2019

HÜMA UTKU - Black Water Red

Purchase: bit.ly/35jLaxx
Catalog #: GN63
October 1, 2020
2xCASS+DIGI

The midnight hour crept unto thee with hasty caution, revealing 'A Little Night Music: Aural Apparitions from the Geographic North', our third putrid prowl into Halloween-inspired sounds to torment and tantalize throughout the season. For this bout of distinguished dementia, we culled 31 brand new tracks of haunted hysteria conjured by some of the most alluring ambientists and outer auteurs from around the world. 

Spanning over two hours across two cassettes, 'A Little Night Music…’ unfurls itself in a literary horror structure, appearing and disappearing through a stirring Prologue and Epilogue by London-based cellist Oliver Coates, with each side of the cassettes introducing its Chapter with a chilling dirge courtesy of the inscrutable Geographic North House Band.  

What fills the ensuing pages is a mirthful tale concocted by an assembly exploring a realm all at once mournful and fatalist at its core. Entries from Clarice Jensen, Malibu, and the collaboration of Like a Villain and Christina Vantzou bring about endless glacial landscapes accented by pitch-grey skies. Conversely, transmissions from Michael Valentine West, M. Sage, Gregg Kowalsky, and Austrian ambient stalwart Fennesz explore richly textured mines of foreboding glee. 

Suspicion is the word when considering Zelienople’s eerie horse-carriage clip-clop, Nick Malkin’s neon-lit noir-jazz, or Carmen Villain’s gripping dub excursion. Elsewhere Ki Oni, Takagi Masakatsu, and Mary Lattimore (joined here by Paul Sukeena) provide glimmers of warmth amidst a tortured chill. 

Notable is the resurrection of Lotus Plaza and his solemnly hopeful piano composition, while barren hallucinations courtesy of Alex Zhang Hungtai, Ilyas Ahmed, and Danny Paul Grody set the stage for a third act confrontation from Atlantans Fit of Body and Algiers, providing a one-two serving of sensual unrest and cautionary homily.  

With hope and resolve shimmering through the final moments of our journey, know that all proceeds from the digital and cassette editions go directly toward Feminist Women's Health Center, an Atlanta-based nonprofit providing safe, accessible, and compassionate abortion and gynecological care to all those who need it without judgement.

feministcenter.org

Alex Zhang Hungtai - "El Khela"

This series relies on contorting my voice in @ableton into various sounds to construct the entire arrangement.

(IV) is essentially a slowly-evolving ambient mammoth, and contends for the piece I am most proud of out the entire series. However, my perception may be slightly coloured by this being the favourite of @iainhowie.

(IV) initially began in the same project as (III). Indeed, they were once a marathon of musical movements, cinematically flowing into one another. However, as each movement evolved, they grew out of their home together, as well as past the limitations of my CPU.

Out of the entire series, I feel that both (III) and (IV) extend the furthest beyond the what is expected of the voice in music, finding intrigue with extensive transient manipulation in @Ableton.

Many thanks to Matt Colton (@puttingitonwax) for once again bringing this track all the way home with his unrivalled master work on this track.

A Voice (IV)

Experimental - 6

Neil Ingall