Formerly studying sound art in Berlin, Joseph Kamaru aka KMRU is a Berlin-born Nairobi-based sound artist whose work is based on field recordings, noise and the discourse of sound art. His work proposes a listening culture that extends sound thought and sound practice, making claims that go beyond normative considerations and reflections on auditory culture, and awareness of the surrounding environment through creative works, installations and performances.

I listened to Limen, the disastrous debut album by MRU and Aho Ssan, which reflects on the catastrophe that is now erupting, and Joseph “KMRU” Kamaru, who lives in Berlin, whose gorgeous ambient works often begin with live recordings, often from his home in Kenya or elsewhere in East Africa. in Kenya or elsewhere in East Africa. Paris-based Aho Ssan, meanwhile, is known for building virtual instruments and dense Max/MSP structures. On Limen, their proximity connects like sparks hitting dry brush, leaving hellfire in their wake. I felt the power of nature in the piece, the onslaught of bass and electronics made me feel as if I were seeing a volcanic eruption engulfing everything, a punishment for man’s destruction of the earth.

Multidisciplinary artist Samson Young works in sound, performance, video and installation, and in 2017 he represented Hong Kong at the 57th Venice Biennale with a solo project entitled ‘Songs for Disaster Relief’. He has received the BMW Art Journey Award, the Prix Ars Electronica Award for Excellence in Sound Art and Digital Music, and the inaugural Uli Sigg Award in 2020.

I watched Samson’s Nocturne, a piece he did using live foley and with a connection to the military aspect. In the live Foley he used drums, sand and electric razors to accurately simulate the sounds of explosions, gunshots and debris. What shocked me even more was Samson’s research into examples of artists participating in warfare, and his discovery of the 23rd Headquarters Special Forces, an American tactical unit from World War II, popularly known as the ‘Ghost Unit’. It was a unit of artists – sound technicians, architects, musicians, actors, painters and set designers – whose main task was to conceive and execute deception. They used fake radio transmissions, recorded battle sounds and inflatable tanks in order to create the illusion of an active battlefield and mislead enemy forces.

Makoto Oshiro is a Berlin-Tokyo-based performer and artist. His primary medium is sound, but he also combines other elements including light, electricity and movement of objects. In live performances, he uses self-made tools and instruments that are based on electronic devices, everyday materials, and junk. His installation work handles sound as a physical and auditory phenomenon, and focuses on characteristics such as vibration and interference. 

In his presentation, Makoto showed some of his own acoustic devices, he used electromagnetic relays to switch between high and low voltage and to create a clicking sound. There is also a device he has made called an acoustic oscillator and he can control the amplitude of the oscillation. In his presentation Makoto also demonstrated the instrument he was making called the Kachi Kachi, where he placed two Kachi Kachi’s on a table and pressed a stone against them and the Kachi Kachi would resonate with the table, which I thought was very interesting. While I was researching sound design in games, I also discovered that many audio artists had created their own sound-making devices to be used in games. For example, Samuel Laflamme, the composer of the horror game Outlast, recorded the sound of banging in an empty barrel in order to achieve the horror of the soundtrack.

Makoto’s work also has a lot of light in it, and he has learned Arduino and combined it with sound to make it work. I think it’s a great option to combine sound through a microcomputer. I also took part in the school’s physical computing workshop, where I learnt to use Arduino to control the distance between objects and the closing of lights. I thought it would be a great option to use microcomputers in my work in conjunction with sound. I may also use Arduino in my sophomore exhibition.

Fari Bradley An Iranian-born sound artist, Bradley’s practice involves sound sculpture, installation, performance and broadcast. With a background in classical and North Indian music, Bradley uses off-the-shelf materials, handmade electronic devices for improvisation and recording.

Fari showed two sketches in her presentation and played them with very Indian style instruments. Her two sketches were similar to a score, which is similar to the graphic score in the creative sound project. Her work is also done through acute creation.

The pan in the left and right channels of the intro to Fari’s piece Stereo Mountains is very comforting to me, and the vocals sampled in the piece are Persian, a reminder of the Zagros Mountains that Fari says in his introduction that this was inspired. Elements of Persian singing are similar to Yoder, and Zagros has many influences at the intersection of Iran, Iraq and Turkey. The Zagros spans the entire length of Iran’s western and south-western plateau, bordering Iraq and Turkey, ending at the Strait of Hormuz, and starting in north-western Iran and extending along Iran’s western border.

In my interview with my friend, I asked a few questions.

How do you feel about the sounds you hear in your everyday life?

Sound is present in our lives all the time, but the senses of touch, smell and sight are visible and made up of very small molecules. Sound, however, is made up of waveforms, which are very abstract. Sound is a way of putting on and getting information and, like music, expressing important information. For me, sound is a language other than words, a form of expression that is very malleable. At the same time, as an artist, the sound is as important as the visual, and it can also stimulate my imagination.

Play the game with sound off or on？

With sound The game has a more ambient feel to it, adding to the experience. Travelling through the different spaces in the game makes for an interesting experience. Background music and location-specific music Invisible but create a specific space.

What about the connection between sound and our bodies？

Sounds have important connections to all our other perceptions, for example, physically, the head hurts when you can’t accept high frequency sounds, the sound of nails scraping a chalkboard, sour teeth, and psychologically, the soundtrack to a horror movie, a feeling of being infected.

When I was in Primary School Year 3 I went to the first concert of my life where the lights, sound, songs and instruments mixed together on stage and reached my ears. When the drummer struck the first beat of the concert, my whole heart and eardrums were captivated by the low frequencies and started swaying to the rhythm. When the singer got to the hit song, the whole arena sang along with it, which was very powerful.

I then fell in love with live music, the difference between listening to music live and on my phone or vinyl is that it’s more powerful for me. Many music apps now have the ability to add effects to the original audio file, such as live effects, weighted bass, and custom effects. Although these effects can slightly change the feel of the original audio for me, they still don’t have the same atmosphere as live music.

When I wasn’t there to watch football I watched it live on my electronics and I very clearly remember being in front of the screen during the 2014 World Cup final but I could feel the tension. During the final minutes of the Germany game, when the German players had the ball, the Argentine fans booed and when the Argentine players had the ball, the German fans booed. I watched my first live game before the 2020 pandemic, at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium I watched the Champions League group stage and really experienced the sound of the action. There was a middle-aged fan behind me who kept shouting the names of the players and trying to call their tactics, his voice was particularly obvious when there was no other cheering, but when the team song reached us, everyone’s voice drowned him out. On top of that I felt the high frequency of the boos from the fans when a player took a penalty was so harsh.