KMRU or his real name Joseph Kamaru is a sound artist and Ambient/music producer. He has received critical acclaim online, even collaborating with Ableton and Adam Audio in adverts and short documentaries about his work.
He mainly uses field recordings and manipulates them into lush ambient music. He is currently doing a master’s in sound arts in Berlin, originally coming from where he was born and raised in Kenya.
We had him as a visiting practitioner in our second year of studies and at the time I was listening and using his work as inspiration for my own projects, which ended up being similar to Peter Cusack and his work with sounds from dangerous places. I found his lecturer (KMRU) really interesting as he also spoke what Angus said about field notes sometimes instead of recording and using that as a way of field recording.
His career is being a touring musician, underground signed to indie labels, releasing records/vinyl and collaborating with other artists. I would love to do this as well, the real thing is that it is difficult, you have to be lucky and hardworking.
What also appeals to me about his career is that he has built something where he is known for being creative, rather than defined by one genre or ability. His artist name KMRU could be anything. I want to do that, my current “branding” is mainly hip hop and rap music but I have such a wide pallet of taste and work. I would really enjoy a career where I can release constant interesting pieces of work, and not be held back but what I think I should do or what people know me for.
So this is another potential development pathway, to be an artist, making records, ambient/other music and also studying at the same time, see what happens as you go along with it?