Kiasmos: II review – will have you crying tears of joy on

(Erased Tapes)
The Icelandic-Faroese duo follow their 2014 cult debut with a second album of meticulous, majestic, simply beautiful electronic music

Kiasmos want your tears. The electronic duo – comprising Bafta-winning and Grammy-nominated Icelandic composer Ólafur Arnalds and Faroese musician Janus Rasmussen – make what they describe as “emotional rave”: euphorically melancholic music designed to have you crying on the dancefloor. Let the contents of their second album (released a decade on from their self-titled cult debut) wash over you, and you may well find yourself in a pleasingly maudlin mood.

Opener Grown summons the sublimity of the natural world (warm beams of synth sunlight, forest floor-style rustling), supplementing such simple majesty with earthy strings that telegraph a kind of premature nostalgia for the present moment. Sometimes it’s the layers of swooping, melodic beauty that prove most evocative (as on Sworn) or the duo’s ability to bottle joyful energy (Told). On Burst, the duo interrupt both buildups and drops with elegiac strings to headily bittersweet effect.