"Joseph Kamaru's breakout album, , might never have existed without COVID-19. He recorded its six long tracks of lightless drone at home in Nairobi in April 2020, after the sudden global shutdown had scuttled plans for a European tour. Peter Rehberg, head of Vienna's Editions Mego label, received the demo while stuck in Berlin during the first quarantine period; he said that the unreleased album became his personal soundtrack for those featureless weeks."
"Kamaru's album, unlike more conventionally soothing strains of ambient music, reflected that thrumming sense of disquiet. It often felt like a million things were happening at once under the surface of the music, though you'd be hard pressed to pinpoint a single one of them: gravitational fields colliding, ocean currents flowing into one another, legions of bacteria mounting invisible wars."
KMRU recorded Peel at home in Nairobi in April 2020 during the COVID-19 shutdown; the record comprises six long tracks of lightless drone. Peter Rehberg of Editions Mego received the demo while quarantined in Berlin and treated the unreleased record as a personal soundtrack to that still, featureless period. Peel was released in July 2020 and married outward calm with a deeper, thrumming unease, suggesting many simultaneous subterranean forces. Since Peel, KMRU has released numerous works exploring Nairobi's electromagnetic signature, colonial extraction histories, collaborations across genres, and archival anthologies. KMRU began work on Kin early in 2021, guided by conversations with Rehberg.
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