On Sunday, 8 November, sound artist KMRU will take over Cloud Nine at TivoliVredenburg to present WAI8, an eight-hour durational performance.
Joseph Kamaru, aka KMRU, is a producer whose practice is grounded in the discourse of field recording, noise and sound art. By capturing the overlooked vitality of natural and everyday environments—first in Nairobi and then in Berlin—he has developed a rich and evolving sonic archive that forms the foundation of his work.
KMRU presents WAI8
First realized in 2023, WAI8 established a foundation of sustained listening and temporal immersion, examining time and attention through the practice of waiting as an active form of engagement. Its iteration at Le Guess Who? 2026 features nine performers, positioning waiting as a space where sound is allowed to breathe, decay and resonate over time.
The project explores sonic temporality by investigating how sound can stretch, fracture, loop, or dissolve linear time, positioning sound not only as material but as a temporal agent. Through exchanges across noise, silence, drones, rhythm, voice and waveform, WAI8 privileges the in-between: thresholds where sound becomes barely perceptible and listening itself becomes a compositional act. It extends listening beyond the purely auditory toward spatial, sensorial and environmental awareness, embracing openness and resisting narrative closure, climax, or resolution. In doing so, it challenges conventional concert formats and emphasizes drift, pause and gradual transformation.
Artists featured in WAI8
With self-built digital instruments, Aho Ssan composes like a visual storyteller—echoing his background in graphic design and cinema—where sound behaves as light, frame and movement. By combining symphonic synthesizer sequences with sharp, high-pitched interferences and booming, overpowering bass, he shapes abstract sculptures carved from sonic matter.
Throughout her career, Carmen Villain has crafted diverse sonic worlds shaped by her innate curiosity for sound. Her work inhabits a sweet spot between dub's blunt rhythmic lilt and cosmic fourth world, where snatches of instruments such as flute, voice and clarinet create evocative, granular soundscapes and melodies.
Improvising lyricist, producer and sound artist Elvin Brandhi explores the most playful and abrasive edges of the ambient music spectrum. Her production develops on distorted bases that act as an unstable platform on which she sings and performs her improvised stream of consciousness lyrical trips.
Koshiro Hino is a composer, musician and label owner whose practice is deeply rooted in Osaka’s rich heritage of avant-garde culture and sonic experimentation. Moving fluidly between electro-acoustic experimentation and modular synth soundscapes, he weaves precise minimal patterns with dense, distorted textures.
Sound artist and experimental ambient musician NEXCYIA emploies fragmented voices, environmental traces and decaying tonalities to craft ever-evolving soundscapes shaped by erosion and absence. Through granular synthesis, metallic resonances and degraded electronic hums form dissonant structures, while ephemeral harmonic motifs introduce moments of fragile clarity within the chaos.
Pairing traditional song structure with abstract spatial dynamics, ouri creates unparalleled tension between aggressive rhythmic progression and soothing harmonic fluidity. She stretches beyond the boundaries of electronica for a deliberate synthesis of moods and sounds, holding the bridge between classical tradition and contemporary expression.
Multidisciplinary artist Samora Ogeda-Chemba Obyerodhyambo is a composer and producer whose work exists at the intersection of sound, film, performance and political imagination. His sonic architectures are primarily shaped by African contemporary artistic discourse and his music fuses jazz improvisation, avant-garde electronics, spoken word and cinematic orchestration.
Producer Loraine James has established her identity through a blend of refined composition, gritty experimentation and unpredictable, intricate electronic programming. While titles released under her given name tend toward IDM-influenced, vocal-heavy collaborations, James reserves her alias, Whatever The Weather, for a more impressionistic, inward gaze.
Dive into the program of artists invited by KMRU via leguesswho.com/line-up.
Photography in the header by Dawid Makowski