PEACE PLACES: KENYAN MEMORIES |debut EP

via SA Recordings | purchase on Bandcamp or SA’s Product Store

Available on Digital & Limited Edition 12" Vinyl

“peace places: kenyan memories is about as edenic as electronic music gets.” — Resident Advisor

Album Description

I wrote ‘peace places: kenyan memories’ while away from home, Kenya, in the United States, during the pandemic. I found that imagining peaceful, gentle, memories from my 18 years of a childhood in Kenya became an earnest antidote to remedy homesickness and emotional fatigue — and almost naturally, these imaginations evoked a very visceral and creative response within me. From my childhood home in Nairobi, where my piano, gifted to me at age 8, still sits; to my father’s hometown of Kĩrĩnyaga (‘Ngurumo, or Feeding Goats Mangoes’) and my grandmother’s farm in Kiambu (A Walk Through My Cũcũ’s Farm); from holidays by the Kenyan coast (‘Galu’ and ‘Naila’s Peace Place’) to a few in Laikipia (‘Equator song’); these places find themselves crystallised in each track of the EP, most apparent through the inclusion of field recordings taken in respective place; but also in the music and lyricism of the pieces. But as I worked on this record, the more I realised that my mind was not only taking solace in imagining ‘home’ as physical spaces, but also in seeing that ‘home’ was in ancestry; in language and words; in family and friends; in the palpability of my instruments; in harmony but also dissonance, and of course, in music.

Stream on Spotify & Apple Music

Press & Reviews [Selected]

Kariũki’s deftness at bringing us into her world is remarkable. She’s able to create emotion that communicates simply and directly, and to create images in sound. This young sound artist’s skill is already tremendous, and I can easily see her becoming a crucial voice in contemporary composition and experimental music.” — Bandcamp (Best Albums of Winter 2022)

“…transcendent in its scope and space-age in its sonic ambition.” — The Guardian (Contemporary Album of the Month)

“A beautiful ambient daydream…Nyokabi Kariũki's debut EP peace places: kenyan memories is about as edenic as electronic music gets.” — Resident Advisor

"The unique nature of the EP, which unfolds like a radio-play, leads us to believe that the composer may eventually produce even more intense and unflinching works in the manner of Matana Roberts, rescuing history from distortion, producing a form of sonic enlightenment." — A Closer Listen

"Kariũki’s touch is deft and ambiguous. She weaves her own sort of magic realism into tones, blurring the line between the what, where, and when..." — The Quietus

"...her debut EP peace places: kenyan memories is an interrogation of what it means to belong...Each listen of the EP speaks to Nyokabi’s ability to merge tuneful elements with no seeming correlation to produce something distinctively gorgeous from their blend." — Tangaza Magazine

“Where a collection of extended, unembellished field recordings might have read like an attempt to invoke a simulated inhabiting of these spaces, these mindfully assembled collages generate something more complicated: a dialogue between documented environments and a poetic interpreter…” — ATTN: Magazine

“"Moving through 'peace places', pages get earmarked and turned but not forgotten. Vivid memories hold the power of time travel and Kariuki wields those memories with a visceral potency." — Foxy Digitalis

More Interview & Features: Talkhouse (In Conversation with KMRU), Digital in Berlin 11+3, Our Culture, 15 Questions, A Closer Listen, ATTN:Magazine

Radio/Podcast: NTS (Takeover), New Frame (Podcast), BBC Sounds Freakzone Playlist, Soho Radio - Mwalimu Express

End of Year Lists: The Guardian’s 10 Best Contemporary Albums of 2022, A Closer Listen 2022 Top 10 Experimental, Our Culture The 25 Best EPs of 2022, Our Culture The 50 Best Album Covers of 2022

Full Credits: Featured artists: Nyokabi Kariuki / Non-featured artists: Chris O’Leary (“Naila’s Peace Place”) / Musicians - their instrumentation: Nyokabi Kariuki- Vocals (Tracks 1, 2, 3, 5), Kalimbas (Track 2, 3, 4), Mbira (Track 5), Piano and Gyil (Track 4) / Chris O’Leary - drumset (“Galu”), vibraphone (“Naila’s Peace Place”) / Recording Studio/Studio Team: Recorded at home in Potomac, Maryland, with additional recordings in Fair Lawn, NJ for “home piano” and “Naila’s Peace Place” / Field recordings in all tracks taken in various places around Kenya, with additional field recording from SOUND OF NAIROBI archive in “home piano”, and Field recording from Potomac, Maryland in “Naila’s Peace Place”.

Thank Yous

This record would not exist without the time, efforts, kindness and love of: Naila Aroni, Chris O’Leary, Madeleine Flieger, Emmanuel Undie, Will DiNola, Marundu Muturi, Alev Lenz, Aspa, Enyang Ha, Harriet & Lois at SA Recordings, Auntie Karungs & the Muriras; Dad, Mum, Cũcũ, and Ngari.