Peel

ケニア・ナイロビのエレクトロニック・ミュージック/アンビエント代表格 2020年作

ケニア・ナイロビを拠点に活動するサウンド・アーティスト/プロデューサーJOSEPH KAMARUによるプロジェクトKMRUは、ナイロビを中心に急成長している実験音楽シーンの代表的な存在。RESIDENT ADVISORの2018年「15 EAST AFRICAN ARTISTS YOU NEED TO HEAR」にも選出、「NYEGE NYEGE FESTIVAL」の常連である要注意人物の2020年リリース作。フィールドレコーディングとエレクトロニクスの絶妙なミックスが、新しい形のアンビエント・ミュージックを生み出しています!

Kenyan sound artist Joseph Kamaru recorded his album Peel within 48 hours, shortly after returning home to Nairobi following a trip to Montreal for the Mutek festival, and right before the COVID-19 lockdown. Peels six pieces fall into the haunted loops school of ambient music, capturing brief snapshots of electro-acoustic sound and setting them spinning with subtle shifts and alterations. Unlike other artists well known for this type of work, such as William Basinski and the Caretaker, KMRUs music doesnt address themes related to memory, aging, or the passage of time. It feels live, breathing, and radiant rather than slowly fading away into the void of history. He embeds natural sounds such as trickling water and distant bird calls deep into his glowing sound-fields, and some pieces seem to rock back and forth like a ship on the high seas. Klang is the albums most densely layered track, as well as its stormiest, but all of its tension is washed away with Insubstantial, which resembles a solo trek through an abandoned fairground. Most breathtaking of all is the stirring 23-minute title track, which expresses a sense of slow-motion impending doom through gradually building loops and textures, yet does so with gentler tones rather than harsh, suffocating ones. ~ Paul Simpson