Kin

Originally conceived as a new album for the famed Editions Mego label following the excellent 2020 album Peel, Kin fully surfaced on that imprint some years after the passing of its founder Peter Rehberg. Most important of all, though, is simply that it’s another in the series of remarkable albums by KMRU, showcasing his abilities with exploratory electronic art and possibility. The fact alone that one song, “Blurred,” is done in collaboration with another legend in the field, Fennesz, is sign enough, but even more so because it feels like a proper meeting of the minds, as layers and beatless rhythms and pulses of sound intertwine in a feeling of meditative peace and transcendence. That song and the concluding “By Absence” are the two longest on the album, but one of its shortest, “We Are,” is one of its best, a repeated fanfare that sounds like a striking call to action amid murk. “They Are Here” is one of Kin’s most compelling moments, feels like the slow rolling in of a soft signal through sculpted haze, a moment of connection balancing tension and beauty before ending in a pattern of feedback drones.