Arriving next month, Inert sees Janus Rasmussen step into his most expansive and personal solo work to date, moving beyond the restrained minimalism that has long defined his output in favour of something more fluid, vulnerable and emotionally direct.
Best known as one half of Kiasmos alongside Ólafur Arnalds, Rasmussen has spent the last decade refining a sound rooted in sonic precision, immersive atmosphere and subtle emotional tension. Across forthcoming album Inert, those foundations remain intact but are pushed into new territory through a broader palette of tempos, textures and vocal-led songwriting.
Built around intricate electronics, layered rhythms and soft-edged melodic movement, the record unfolds as a reflection on creative inertia and the act of breaking free from it. Drawing from UKG, breakbeat, downtempo and post-classical influences, Rasmussen moves seamlessly between introspective stillness and dancefloor propulsion, allowing tracks to shift instinctively rather than settle into fixed genre boundaries.
Moments like the hypnotic pulse of “Murk”, the fragile openness of “Sift” and the euphoric release of “Spiraling” reveal an artist embracing unpredictability without losing coherence, while his own vocals appear more prominently than ever before, woven carefully into the album’s emotional architecture.
Across Inert, Rasmussen balances clarity with density, restraint with release and structure with spontaneity, shaping a record that feels less concerned with stylistic identity than emotional movement. We caught up with him ahead of the album’s release to find out more…
Inert is described as a record about breaking free from inertia. What was the personal or creative inertia you felt before making this album and how did you start to move beyond it?
I think what I was feeling when I started working on the album was that I had been stuck making relatively similar music for quite a long time. I had this strong feeling that it was time to really bring everything to the table creatively and musically and not limit myself to one specific identity or sound anymore. That’s why I started incorporating my singing again, experimenting with different genres and tempos, and generally allowing myself to move more freely between ideas without worrying too much about which box I was supposed to fit into. In a way the album became about breaking out of a creative inertia that I had slowly placed myself in over many years. The way I moved beyond that was really just by being honest with myself. Whenever I started writing something I tried to follow my intuition more than anything else and let it dictate where the music naturally wanted to go.
You are widely known through Kiasmos. How did your experience in that project with Ólafur Arnalds shape the way you approached this solo record?
Of course, working on Kiasmos has profoundly affected me. I was actually writing parts of this album around the same time as we were working on the latest Kiasmos record so there were definitely ideas and sensibilities bleeding into both projects simultaneously. There’s also something very inspiring about collaborating with somebody you know and trust deeply. When you work that closely with another person completely new ideas can emerge through the process itself and those experiences inevitably shape the way you approach your own music later on. I think working with Ólafur has taught me a lot about restraint, atmosphere, and emotional pacing, but with Inert, which arrives next month, I wanted to take some of those sensibilities and push them in a much more personal, unpredictable direction.
Compared to your earlier solo releases, Inert features much more of your own vocals. What made this feel like the right time to bring your voice more to the front?
My background is actually in rock bands where I sang and played guitar long before Kiasmos existed, so using my voice was originally a very natural part of my musical identity. In a sense I had started missing that side of myself creatively and I felt a strong urge to bring it back into my music and see where it could lead me.It has definitely been challenging getting back into the headspace of writing lyrics and vocal hooks again, but it’s a challenge I genuinely enjoy. Over the years I’ve also spent a huge amount of time producing and recording vocals for other artists, especially within pop music, so I think that gave me a lot more confidence when it came to vocal production and understanding how to shape a vocal emotionally within a track. Eventually it just felt like the right time to explore that within my own music again.
There is a strong sense of genre fluidity across the album including UKG, breakbeat, downtempo, and post-classical textures. How do you decide when a track should lean toward the dancefloor versus something more introspective?
Honestly, I don’t think about it too much. I write very instinctively and rarely sit down with a fixed plan of what kind of track I’m going to make. Sometimes I’ll naturally gravitate toward something energetic and rhythm-driven and other times I’ll feel more drawn toward something atmospheric, emotional, or ambient. It really depends on my state of mind that day. Because this album was very much about breaking out of creative limitations and allowing myself complete freedom, I tried not to think in terms of genre at all. I stopped worrying about whether something belonged to a certain sound or scene and just trusted that there would still be a thread running through the entire album simply because it was coming from me.
The track “Murk” feels especially hypnotic and club focused. Was that written with a specific physical space or live setting in mind?
“Murk” was actually born out of a jam session with two close friends. We spent a weekend writing a bunch of beats together and this was one of the ideas that eventually made it onto the forthcoming album. After that initial session I kept developing it on my own for almost another year. There was something about the track that gave it an immediately raw hypnotic energy I loved. It felt very physical from the beginning. I think part of that energy probably comes from how spontaneously it was created in the first place. There’s something special that can happen when ideas emerge naturally between close friends in a room together and I think the track still carries that feeling.
“Sift” and “Bones” carry a more emotional and fragile tone. Do you approach writing those kinds of pieces differently in the studio compared to more rhythm-driven tracks?
Those kinds of songs usually happen very naturally when I’m in a slightly more reflective or mellow state of mind. “Sift” for example started at home with a very simple chord progression. When I later arrived at the studio, I added a minimal piano line on top and tried very consciously not to overproduce it. I think the final track contains only four or five channels, which is actually very unusual for me. But I loved how sparse and open it felt. Most of my productions tend to become much denser and more layered so sometimes it’s refreshing to allow something to simply breathe and remain fragile. “Bones” came together in a very similar way. I wrote the initial progression at home one quiet morning while drinking coffee, then later brought it into the studio, wrote a simple piano line on top, and then that was it.
You have worked extensively as a producer, songwriter, and mix engineer for others. How does that behind-the-scenes experience influence your own solo decision making?
It influences everything really. I work across a lot of different genres with other artists from pop to folk to rock music and all of those sensibilities inevitably bleed into my own work. I genuinely love working on all kinds of music regardless of genre. That constant movement between different worlds keeps me very inspired. Working so extensively with vocals over the years has also had a huge impact on this record specifically. Producing for other artists gave me a much deeper understanding of how vocals can function emotionally within a production, and I think that experience gave me the confidence to finally bring my own voice back to the forefront in my work.
Living and working in Reykjavík has placed you within a unique creative environment. How has your surroundings shaped the sonic palette of Inert, if at all?
Reykjavík is a wonderful place to live as a creative person because it’s a small city yet incredibly rich in creativity. The community here feels very connected and it’s easy to build close relationships with people you want to collaborate with. Where I work has around twenty or thirty studios inside the same building so there’s this constant atmosphere of people meeting in hallways, talking about gear, sharing music, and discussing projects they’re working on. There’s a friendly sense of competition because you’re surrounded by so many talented people making exciting things. That atmosphere definitely shaped the energy behind Inert and continues to affect your motivation as an artist.
The album moves between restraint and release quite dramatically especially in tracks like “Fumes” and “Spiraling.” Do you think in terms of narrative arcs when sequencing a record?
I think when you choose to make a full album in 2026 you have to justify why it exists as an album rather than just a collection of singles. For me sequencing and shaping the emotional arc of a record is still a very important part of the experience. I grew up listening to albums from beginning to end so storytelling through sequencing feels very instinctive to me. Listeners will definitely encounter moments across Inert that are intentionally more intense or disruptive. I wanted certain tracks to almost shake the listener awake, reminding them that they’re listening to something that demands attention and engagement. I didn’t want the record to simply drift by passively in the background.
In your earlier work minimalism played a key role. On Inert there is still clarity but also more density and layering. What changed in your approach to arrangement and sound design?
While making Inert I didn’t want things to feel too safe or overly controlled. I wanted moments that felt slightly chaotic or dangerous in contrast to the quieter more restrained sections. I liked the idea of constantly shifting the energy and reminding the listener that they were moving through a carefully shaped experience. Technically my approach to arrangement and sound design hasn’t changed that much, but when you work entirely alone the decisions become very direct and unfiltered because there’s nobody else affecting your instincts. What you end up hearing is just a very honest reflection of my own headspace and creative impulses at that moment in time.
Looking back at your evolution since your earliest releases, what feels like the most consistent thread in your musical identity even as your sound expands?
This is actually something I still struggle to fully understand myself. People often tell me that my productions have a very strong identity, and I guess at some point I simply have to trust them when they say that because from my own perspective, I often feel like I’m all over the place stylistically. But I do believe there’s some kind of emotional or atmospheric thread running through everything I make even if I can’t fully describe what it is. Maybe it’s just a combination of all my sensibilities as a person and everything I’m drawn toward creatively. Even when the genres or structures change there’s probably still some underlying emotional language that remains consistent throughout it all. That’s what I hope at least.
What does success look like for Inert for you personally, emotionally, or creatively beyond reception or streaming numbers?
For me success with this album would simply mean that people experience it as a complete work and connect with it emotionally once it’s finally out in the world. It’s very much an album that was designed to be listened to from beginning to end.It’s only around thirty-three minutes long, which actually feels like a good length today considering how fragmented listening habits have become. So, if people take the time to sit down with it properly when it comes out next month and experience the whole record in one sitting, then I already feel like the album has succeeded in doing what I hoped it would do.
