Photo by Heoinn Eiriksson
In 2014, Iceland’s Olafur Arnalds and the Faroe Islands’ Janus Rasmussen set to work producing their first full-length album under the moniker, Kiasmos. Released that October, the self-titled Kiasmos was a beautifully crafted blend of Arnald’s ‘neo-classical’ melodic arrangements with Rasmussen’s organic, bass heavy beats. Kiasmos is an emotional journey: moments of joy buried beneath a pervasive atmosphere of melancholia, propelled forward by Rasmussen’s incessant minimal rhythms.
Thereafter, Kiasmos were faced with the question common to all electronic musicians embarking on tour: how to translate the months of detailed studio work into a spontaneous and entertaining live show?
Their answer was, unfortunately, less sophisticated than one would have hoped from such proven studio experts. Despite the duo’s relentless enthusiasm during their hour-long performance at the Foxtel Festival Hub, their live renditions rarely strayed far from the album. The audience was involved and willing, malleable; the potential was there for Arnalds and Rasmussen to manipulate emotions, to recast their known material into a live context and take us on a novel journey; one that felt similar but different. Instead, the safer route was chosen: we were given a solid and energetic performance of the Kiasmos repertoire, which ultimately did not deviate far, neither in form nor content, from their studio work.
One cannot, however, fault Arnalds and Rasmussen for their enthusiasm. Rasmussen’s hands tirelessly worked knobs and faders while Arnalds, using controllers and an iPad, weaved his melodies in and out, back and forth, send and return. Each climax was accompanied by fist pumping and head bopping that put David Guetta to shame. It is clear that these guys love to perform and their enthusiasm was infectious.
The crowd, a conglomeration of Melbourne’s electronically minded, responded well. In heat that had created an unofficial Boiler Room, the atmosphere was far less restrained than one would expect from your typical 9pm gig. The sparse moments of solo piano in favourites liked ‘Looped’ and opener ‘Lit’ were accompanied by roars of approval, as the crowd ‘Swayed’ in time. And yet there was a degree to which it all felt slightly formulaic. Dance when the kick drops, marvel at the beauty of Arnalds’ string and piano arrangements when stripped back. This may well have been solved if the pair had embraced the nature of a live performance: variation, surprise, chance. Derived from the Greek word for ‘crossing’ and further signifying ‘to shape like the letter X’, chiasmus in rhetoric indicates structures that do not repeat the same words and phrases, but rather advance an inversion of ideas and concepts. This idea is explored in their studio work and should be further extended to the live performance.
Something changed in the final number, ‘Bent’. Halfway through the track, bass and drums were cut to a solo running piano riff, which Arnalds creatively looped with his iPad. Rasmussen started to sequence a beat on the fly, as the bass line was slowly filtered back in to the final climax. Albeit late, it was a true unanticipated moment, and showed the potential of Arnalds and Rasmussen to creatively perform live. More of this was needed, and will hopefully become a more frequent feature of the Kiasmos show in what is already a fruitful musical partnership. This is not always an easy task for the electronic musician: spontaneity and the unprogrammed inherently involve the potential to mess-up, to make mistakes. Yet the reward can be an unexpected moment of beauty, as it happened last year, just around this time, with the release of the eponymous album, Kiasmos.
Rating: 3 stars out of 5
Kiasmos (Australian Premiere)
Foxtel Festival Hub, Southbank
9 October 2015
Melbourne Festival
www.festival.melbourne
8-25 October
