One of the most interesting, if not visually engaging, artists at Laneway was electronica boffin Jon Hopkins, who added edge and scratchy beats to elevate his sound above the quasi-ambience of his albums.
You suspect Icelandic duo Olafur Arnalds and Faroe Islander Janus Rasmussen could also up their game for a live audience. Because here across eight instrumentals in 50 minutes they ease from atmospheric weightlessness, floating on washes of synths and piano, into gentle beat-driven passages and by the centre are astutely ambling between the chill-out room and the dancefloor.
However the more considered and quieter passages are the most engaging as they discreetly drop in strange percussive clicks, pitch-shifting and a string quartet to elevate this above what could have been classy but slightly vacuous home studio indulgence.
By the midpoint of the 9-minute Thrown there have been allusions to the widescreen prog of Tangerine Dream, without the bombast.
There are brooding pieces too - the opening passages of the portentous Dragged suggest something wicked this way comes - so it's not all white clouds and dappled light. There's a lot of electronica like this, but Kiasmos' debut is among the best.
Album: Kiasmos
Label: Erased Tapes/Southbound
Verdict: A warm breeze from the wintery north