KMRU and POLIDO

Taking the Tagus and its sounds as a starting point, KMRU will embark on a literal walk by the river, capturing what’s often missed by its bystanders. A precise aquatic choreography sprinkled by the surroundings of bustling cosmopolitan modulations, he will be joined by Polido: a Portuguese artist hailing from the coastal town of São Pedro de Moel, who will colour-in and reimagine these familiar soundscapes. 

Joseph Kamaru, aka KMRU (he/him), is a sound artist and experimental ambient musician, raised in Nairobi, Kenya, and currently based in Berlin where he is a student at Universität der Künste Berlin for sound studies and sonic arts master programme. His works deal with discourses of field recording, improvisation, noise, ambient, machine learning, radio art and expansive hypnotic drones. He has earned international acclaim from his far-flung locales as well as his ambient recordings, including the critically acclaimed 2020 album Peel, released on Editions Mego. He has presented his works in Nyege Nyege Festival, Mutek Montreal, Unsound, GAMMA, CTM and many more.

Polido (he/him) is a composer and artist from Marinha Grande, currently based in Lisbon. A student at the Dutch Art Institute (2020–22), he released the diptych A Casa e os Cães and Sabor a Terra by Holuzam last year, after previous singles on C- and WET compilations.
Based on the material and technological properties of sound – and its relational and immaterial dimension – his work probes questions of language, archive and intersections between histories of music and politics. In parallel, he has collaborated over the years as composer and/or sound director for films by Louis Henderson, Filipa César, Margarida Meneses and Madalena Fragoso.