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LP
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ACU 003LP
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Nairobi-born Berlin-based sound artist Joseph Kamaru, aka KMRU, shares his new work Stupor on the new Helsinki-based label Other Power. Commissioned by the Helsinki curatorial and commissioning agency PUBLICS, Stupor is comprised of three original long form tracks; "CRP-12," "Even a Tear," and the title track "Stupor." The tracks on the album are speculative notes to social architectures and environments the artist has traversed. His signature emerges through electro-acoustic forms as he configures spatial and temporal imaginaries still tethered to the experiences of the places his ear encountered. The tracks on this album are speculative notes to social architectures and environments the artist has traversed. His orchestrated compositions and arrangements levitate us and turn our ears towards places and times beyond our reach, propelling us into a future anticipated but ungraspable. It is exactly the physical and psychological space that KMRU forges from his recordings and digital processes that stretch and transform them into prolific sound "events." For Joseph Kamaru, sound is a sensorial medium through which social, material and conceptual interpretations are manifested in his works. KMRU carries with him a repository of listening experiences from Nairobi and beyond expanding his sonic practices, bringing an awareness of surroundings through creative compositions, installations and performances. KMRU has carved out a serious and definitive space on the list of essential authors in ambient experimental music -- one of the most prolific and innovative artists in his field.
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LP
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ACU 002LP
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Islaja presents her new album Angel Tape, her debut release on the new Helsinki-based label Other Power. Drawing inspiration from childhood epiphanies while listening to an alleged recording of angels singing, Islaja has crafted an album that stands out as a major work in her expansive and celebrated catalogue, which includes previous releases on labels such as Ecstatic Peace!, Fonal, and Svart. Islaja, aka Finnish artist Merja Kokkonen, describes her new album as a "counterwork" to her most recent albums, where the mode of composing was more song-based. This time around, she goes more in the direction of vast fields of sound where the human voice is a key ingredient of music that breaks free of strict stylistic guidelines and traditional song forms. Rough around the edges, atonal and otherworldly, Angel Tape is the result of a lifetime of inspiration from something beyond the immediate realm of our experience, an attempt to catch the elusive essence of musical otherness. Whereas Islaja has often thought of albums as being collections of recent songs presented together, Angel Tape has a strong sense of conceptual coherence. The music comes from a place. That doesn't mean that one must take a single path from one place to the next, as close listenings of the album reveal layers upon layers of not only sound but also of mood and meaning. From the human voice in its barest form, to the rising dense walls of sound moving and reshaping, Angel Tape is a captivating album that unveils new contours with each repeated listening.
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