100 Best Songs of the 20’s So Far #64 Kiasmos – Bound

Released: 2024

The thing is electronic music is that anyone can make it, right? A computer, some free software, a few how to videos on YouTube and – voila – before you know it you’re massive on Tik Tok and DJ-ing at Berghain. Easy.

Of course if everything was easy we’d all be at it, so perhaps it’s not quite so simple. As Kiasmos, Ólafur Arnalds and Janus Rasmussen (From Iceland and the Faroe Islands respectively) waited almost ten years before releasing the follow up to their self titled debut, a record which originally met with a very rare sort of critical awe. Arnalds especially had been busy since, but the understatment of naming it simply II spoke to a wish to the music speak for itself.

The duo have entitled what they do “Emotional rave”, evoking the spectacular vistas of their own natural worlds; you can dance to this, but you’ll want to be deep in a forest somewhere, looking up at the brightly glowing cosmos above. Bound is gentle, watercolour techno in the guise of Bonobo, or Jon Hopkins’ spectacular, benchmark setting Immunity, a tune for sunrises and long, long, long journeys to listen to on an ecstatic loop. Anyone can make electronic music, but very few can make it as good as this.