Subtle ReclaimKMRU (KE/DE), Aho Ssan (FR)

multichannel composition, 2024

Subtle Reclaim is a collaborative piece by KMRU and Aho Ssan, originally premiered at PRÉSENCES électronique (GRM) for the festival’s 20th anniversary (2024). The work explores the sonic and emotional traces of an event that has just ended — a moment of immense, possibly traumatic magnitude. The audience enters a space where something has already happened, and what remains are the echoes, the resonances, the residual energy. It is not a narrative ofdestruction, but of what follows: a quiet yet persistent process of reclaiming one’s voice, space, and breath. Combining immersive electronics, textural field recordings, and fragile harmonies, Subtle Reclaim creates a suspended atmosphere — a space between collapse and reconstruction. It is both aftermath and beginning, evoking personal and collective memory, and the gentle insistence of survival. While the piece stands on its own, it can also be seen as a conceptual continuation of Limen, the collaborative album by KMRU & Aho Ssan — inhabiting a liminal space where sonic matter holds the potential to heal, reframe, or simply hold still.

KMRU (KE/DE)

Joseph Kamaru, aka KMRU, is a Nairobi-born, Berlin-based sound artist whose work is grounded in the discourse of field recording, noise, and sound art. His work posits expanded listening cultures of sonic thoughts and sound practices — a proposition to consider and reflect on auditory cultures beyond the norms. An awareness of surroundings through creative compositions, installations, and performances. He has earned international acclaim with performances across diverse international venues such as the Barbican, Berlin Atonal, CTM festival, Dekmantel, Le Guess Who? and Tramway. His critically acclaimed releases have appeared on labels like Editions Mego, Subtext, Seil Records, and his own imprint, OFNOT. In 2022, he supported Big Thief on their UK/EU tour and toured the US with Fennesz. He is a SHAPE artist, received an honorary mention at Prix Ars Electronica 2023, and holds an MA in Sound Studies and Sonic Arts. KMRU has carved out a serious and definitive place among the essential authors in ambient-experi- mental music — one of the most prolific and innovative artists in his field.

kmru.info

Aho Ssan (FR)

Aho Ssan is the artist name of Paris-based Niamké Désiré. After studying graphic design and cinema, he began composing electronic music and creating his own digital instruments. Shortly after, he won the Foundation France Television Prize for his soundtrack to Ingha Mago’s film in 2015 and has worked on several projects related to IRCAM and GRM in France. His debut LP Simulacrum was released on February 7, 2020, via Subtext Recordings. Based on the concept of Jean Baudrillard, it navigates society’s presentation of inclusivity and equality against his own experience of growing up Black in France. Aho Ssan debuted Simulacrum at Berlin Atonal 2019.

Subsequently, his work has been presented in various institutions across Europe and the United States, including Lincoln Center (New York, US), La Maison de la Radio (Paris, FR), CTM (Berlin, DE), MACBA (Barcelona, ES), Muziekgebouw (Amsterdam, NL) and Krakow Philharmonic (Krakow, PL). In 2022 he released a collaborative album Limen with the artist KMRU and is also part of the SHAPE+ artist platform, organized annually by a network of 16 festivals and arts centers — among them the CTM festival in Berlin and the Unsound festival in Krakow.

His music has been praised by various media outlets such as NPR, Pitchfork, Resident Advisor, Liberation and Les Inrockuptibles. Aho Ssan has just released his new solo album Rhizomes on Nicolas Jaar’s Other People label.