{"id":369967,"date":"2026-05-21T12:49:24","date_gmt":"2026-05-21T10:49:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/germany.10magazine.com\/?p=369967"},"modified":"2026-05-21T14:57:17","modified_gmt":"2026-05-21T12:57:17","slug":"janus-rasmussen-pushes-beyond-restraint-and-repetition-on-forthcoming-album-inert","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/germany.10magazine.com\/de\/janus-rasmussen-pushes-beyond-restraint-and-repetition-on-forthcoming-album-inert\/","title":{"rendered":"Janus Rasmussen pushes beyond restraint and repetition on forthcoming album Inert"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Arriving next month,\u00a0Inert<\/em>\u00a0sees 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.<\/p>\n

Best known as one half of Kiasmos alongside \u00d3lafur Arnalds, Rasmussen has spent the last decade refining a sound rooted in sonic precision, immersive atmosphere and subtle emotional tension. Across forthcoming album\u00a0Inert<\/em>, those foundations remain intact but are pushed into new territory through a broader palette of tempos, textures and vocal-led songwriting.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Moments like the hypnotic pulse of \u201cMurk\u201d, the fragile openness of \u201cSift\u201d and the euphoric release of \u201cSpiraling\u201d reveal an artist embracing unpredictability without losing coherence, while his own vocals appear more prominently than ever before, woven carefully into the album\u2019s emotional architecture.<\/p>\n

Across\u00a0Inert<\/em>, 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\u2019s release to find out more\u2026<\/p>\n\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div>\n

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Inert<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0is 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?<\/strong><\/p>\n

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\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

You are widely known through Kiasmos. How did your experience in that project with \u00d3lafur Arnalds shape the way you approached this solo record?<\/strong><\/p>\n

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\u2019s 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 \u00d3lafur has taught me a lot about restraint, atmosphere, and emotional pacing, but with\u00a0Inert<\/em>, which arrives next month, I wanted to take some of those sensibilities and push them in a much more personal, unpredictable direction.<\/p>\n

Compared to your earlier solo releases,\u00a0Inert<\/em>\u00a0features much more of your own vocals. What made this feel like the right time to bring your voice more to the front?<\/strong><\/p>\n

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\u2019s a challenge I genuinely enjoy. Over the years I\u2019ve 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.<\/p>\n

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?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Honestly, I don\u2019t think about it too much. I write very instinctively and rarely sit down with a fixed plan of what kind of track I\u2019m going to make. Sometimes I\u2019ll naturally gravitate toward something energetic and rhythm-driven and other times I\u2019ll 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.<\/p>\n\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div>\n

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