Released: 05/07/24
Kiasmos, the duo of Bloodgroup's Janus Rasmussen and the renowned film composer Ólafur Arnalds, tend to make unabashedly emotional and beautiful work, and //, the follow-up to the acclaimed 2014 self-titled debut, is no exception. Aptly, for two artists from the Faroe Islands and Iceland, respectively, it is a music that brings to mind panoramic Nordic vistas. The album's compositions are likened to journeys by the two men, and the pair are not wrong, for listening to tracks such as Burst' and Sailed' there is a lovely sense of linear progression in which passages ebb and flow, and motifs rise and fall in various iterations, like objects on the verdant horizon.
Too lively to be trip-hop, and too lush and orchestral to be classed as minimal techno,// is a throwback to late-90s/early-2000s dance music, and reminds me of albums and tracks that I dug in my youth, and still love, such as Björk's Hyperballad', and Talvin Singh's 1998 magnum opusOK “transcendent music of ascension and light; edifying in the way it makes you feel better just by listening to it “ music, to paraphrase the great Emily Dickinson, that perches in the soul.
Pickup available at Dreamhouse Records London
Usually ready in 24 hours
