Kiasmos

The Icelandic techno duo Kiasmos came together when Janus Rasmussen’s band Bloodgroup started working with engineer Ólafur Arnalds. Janus Rasmussen was a veteran of several bands, including Byrta, while Ólafur Arnalds possessed a command of several musical instruments and a knack for music production. The duo hit it off and the two began creating music together in 2009 on a single they co-released with Rival Consoles, another electronic act who were Kiasmos’s labelmates at Erased Tapes. Their combination of real instruments played along with constructed loops, all set to often hard percussion rhythms began to find an audience. They issued their debut EP, Thrown, in 2012, and their self-titled debut album in 2014. They continued to release Eps throughout the decade including 2015’s Looped, 2016’s Swept, and 2017’s Blurred. They returned seven years later with their next full-length offering via Erased Tapes, II, which was conceived as the follow-up to their critically acclaimed 2014 debut.