Kevin Richard Martin (UK)

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Kevin Richard Martin is the man behind The Bug, King Midas Sound, Techno Animal, Zonal, and a host of other tough, uncompromising projects he has initiated since the 1990s. After releasing the highly personal Sirens, the first record under his own name on Lawrence English’s Room40 in June 2019, and a five-volume album suite titled Frequencies For Leaving Earth during the lockdown, 2024 sees him stepping up as an electronic composer with big news in terms of releases and live projects. Disconnect is the first collaborative record between KRM and Joseph Kamaru (KMRU), due out on Phantom Limb on June 24. Featuring Kamaru on vocals for the first time, the album is a powerful study of terror, hope and deep sounds that marry dragging dub depths with distressing vocals, ambient sensibilities and negative space. Also released and played live at selected concerts this year is Black, Kevin’s unexpected and heartfelt musical eulogy to Amy Winehouse, an album with a mostly rhythmless atmosphere possessed by the ghost of Winehouse’s Back to Black album. Fragmented moods and hypnotic drones merge together as its circular beauty drifts, floating in an infinite void … where the original remains only in spirit.