The first year of the pandemic marked the breakthrough of Joseph Kamaru. His spontaneously recorded album »Peel« was one of the major highlights in a year in which everyone was recording ambient records on the fly because that just seemed to make sense. However, it was (by far) not the only release in these twelve months by the now Berlin-based sound artist. »Drawing Water« was released on Bandcamp Friday in November 2020 and comprised three comparatively short pieces that accompanied the autumnal depression in a messed-up year just perfectly. The title track is an etude in kankyō ongaku—slick synth sounds in the tradition of Yoshimura Hiroshi or more recent projects like Atoris—that is paired with plenty of tape hiss and children’s voices meandering through the mix. »Matching Teal Surfaces« uses the same sonic ingredients, but focuses on bubbling, pulsating melodies that interlock in the spirit of minimal music to form rhythms that are constantly in motion. »Uneven« already marks the end of this blissful EP and does so with tender tones that KMRU sends through the various layers of the mix, resulting in a kind of weightless, beatless take on IDM with plenty of tape saturation on top. For the vinyl reissue of the EP via its A Sunken Mall imprint, the label VAAGNER juxtaposes the originals with a 17-minute composition by veteran Abul Mogard, who used them as source material for the piece. »Drawing Water On Matching Teal Surfaces« is far more elegiac: Mogard lets individual tones vibrate with each other like in an organ dirge and finally blurs them together to form sombre drones. It is a perfect addition and at the same time an atmospheric counterpoint to KMRU’s beautiful vignettes.
K. Yoshimatsu
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