Niamké Désiré, aka Aho Ssan, is a long-time Sonic Acts collaborator, performing at both the 2022 and 2024 Biennials. After studying graphic design and cinema, he began composing electronic music and developing his own digital instruments. In 2015, he received the Foundation France Télévision Prize for his soundtrack to the film Ingha Mago and went on to collaborate on several projects with IRCAM and INA GRM in France. His debut LP, Simulacrum, first presented at Berlin Atonal 2019, was released in 2020 via Subtext Recordings. In his works, Aho Ssan explores sonic complexity, identity, and collective experience through a deeply personal yet expansive compositional language.

Joseph Kamaru, aka KMRU, also returns to Sonic Acts, after performing at the 2024 Biennial for the first time. A Nairobi-born, Berlin-based sound artist, his work explores field recording, noise, and sound art. Recognised as one of the most distinctive voices in contemporary experimental and ambient music, KMRU’s practice proposes expanded modes of listening, encouraging reflection on auditory cultures and perception. His releases have appeared on labels such as Editions Mego, Subtext, Seil Records, and his own imprint, OFNOT. In 2023, he received an honorary mention at Prix Ars Electronica.

During the residency from 2 to 7 December 2025, Aho Ssan and KMRU are working on developing a new commissioned piece Still – Fold. Described as a sonic landscape shaped by a silent shift, the work does not seek to explain what happened, but explores what remains: traces, afterimages, and unstable signals that move between presence and disappearance. Rather than a narrative, the piece offers a place where memory, matter, and apparition blur, and where the quiet persistence of sonic residue becomes the only structure left to inhabit. During the 2026 Biennial, Melted for Love, the piece Still – Fold will premiere live at the Spatial Sound Concert in Paradiso and will be presented as a piece at the Listening Room, a sound exhibition hosted at Zone2Source.

Aho Ssan and KMRU are also authors of this year’s Sonic Acts Biennial sound identity, which you can hear in the videos on Instagram.

About the Spatial Sound Residency

The Spatial Sound Residency is a new initiative by Sonic Acts that supports artists in developing multichannel sound works through dedicated time, technical resources, and curatorial dialogue. Based at the Spatial Sound Studio in Rotterdam, the residency offers a flexible framework for experimentation, inviting artists to rethink spatial audio beyond fixed formats and conventional staging. Residents have access to high-spec tools, including both 8.1 and Dolby Atmos systems, facilitating a focus on process, research, and critical listening. Developed as part of a trajectory leading up to the 2026 Biennial, the residency continues Sonic Acts’ long-standing commitment to spatial sound as a site of artistic inquiry and audience engagement.

Image credit Aho Ssan & KMRU by Christopher Bouchard.