For five years I lived with quiet desperation and longing to be in the presence of Nicolas Jaar‘s musical mastery. On Monday night, my chance finally arrived at Sydney’s Metro Theatre. Everyone in the theatre was ready and eager to hand the reigns to Jaar, as he guided is through the 90 minutes of an epic musical narrative.
Entering the stage to a resounding roars, he doesn’t waste time on audience repartee, settling for a quick hello as he slips into his onstage musical playground. Surrounded by a 270 degree array of glowing toys to choose from, he picks up the bass clarinet and cuts through the space with a kind of dark, jazzy improvisation. We watched in awe as the man in front of us began to transform into something that resembled an octopus. With such deft agility he moved between computers, mixers, keyboards and more, with gradual layers of pulsating rhythms answering the call of the clarinet (which he somehow continued to simultaneously play throughout). The driving bass line, a prominent feature in much of his work, carries the audience through the experimental opening that encompasses a melange of musical ideas. One could almost describe the sound as grand church music, the long organ sounds filling the room with dissonant chords. Then out of nowhere, layers of machinery samples begin to grind through the ethereal organ, and the church is completely raised to the ground, drowned out by this orchestra of power tools. The grating orchestra decrescendos and what emerges is the slow syncopated bass line of The Governor, from Jaar’s 2016 album Sirens.
This is what sets Jaar apart: he’s a multi-instrumentalist, singer, and producer of the highest order. He doesn’t just play songs, he creates journeys for the listener to embark upon. He builds tension where normally one would drop; a tease, he teeters, toying with ebb and flow like a grand puppet master. This makes the descent that much sweeter, notably so as the crowd heaved with hands high as strobes flash in unison to the gospel chants of “glory glory”, an excerpt from his BBC Radio 1 Essential Mix.
It was a musical degustation of Latin, gospel, progressive rock, electronic, tribal, techno and more. That’s the thing, you never really know what you’re going to be served – and for good reason, I discovered, as I got to see him two night in a row. Chatting to those around me, I discovered I wasn’t alone. There were so many people there that second night, who like me, were so blown away by the show the night before, they returned – which can only be a testament to his genius.
Largely an instrumental set, Jaar lends his voice to some of his songs both in English and Spanish. The lyrics act more as a poetic musical accent, moving steadily with the beat as he delivers them in a deep drum, reminiscent of something like Nick Cave‘s Red Right Hand.
To a sizzling sight of white strobes and twirling spotlights, he closed the show with a powerful rendition of Space is Only Noise If You Can See. The entire audience swayed and recited along with Jaar in perfect unison under his hypnotic trance. On the first night, we were lucky enough to have not one, but two encores. The second came a few minutes after the house lights had gone up, though, meaning at least a third of the audience had already left and missed out.
As the lights drew dim for the final time, Jaar appeared back on stage in a plume of pink, constructing layer upon layer of complex Latin rhythms and sounds that transported you straight across the Pacific into the epicentre of a Carnival party. People everywhere lost their inhibitions dancing in the now half empty theatre (there were eight shirtless guys in a dance circle on the stairs having the time of their lives). The lights refracted and an entire rainbow of colour filled the room, then Jaar inched towards the microphone and finished us all off with his classic Mi Mujer.
As the house lights went up once again, you could see the awe beaming from every face; but while the show was over as we all shuffled off into the rain-soaked night, you just knew that the aural and emotional intensity would linger on far longer.
Read more: The Tangled Imagination of Nicolas Jaar
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUjWumGIqe8
Words by Nathalie Blanket
Image:
Nicolas Jaar has announced just one headline performance in Australia this March. He’ll be in town to perform at Golden Plains Festival down near Melbourne, alongside Kurt Vile, The Specials and many more.
This is Jaar’s first Australian visit since he and Dave Harrington blew Splendour in the Grass 2014 away as Darkside, only to announce the group’s disbanding just months later.
Last year, Jaar released his sophomore solo record, Sirens, having broken ground with his debut Space Is Only Noise back in 2011. The six-track Sirens was a stunning and unpredictable experiment with space and sound, stretched out soundscapes and sublime rhythms. From sonic explorations through slowly-unravelling crystalline synthscapes, to bouncy low-hanging beats and rich, retro-inspired vocal melodies, the craftsmanship with which the album was not only produced, but arranged and layered, was impressive to say the least.
Anyone who has seen Jaar live will know that his live show is a lot more than your average dance music gig.
Nicolas Jaar’s headline performance will take place in Sydney on March 13 at The Metro Theatre.
Tickets go on sale at 10am AEDT on Monday February via Ticketek.
Watch his ridiculous 2013 Boiler Room set below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUjWumGIqe8
Image: Supplied
Just when you thought festival season couldn’t get much better, Golden Plains, Meredith Festival’s little sister, just went and announced one of the most eclectic and brilliant lineups of the year.
Yes, the festival is smaller and more niche than Splendour, Falls and the other major events, but this kind of lineup really brings us so much hope that Australian festival promoters are still happy to challenge their audiences and push boundaries
It had previously been announced that Australian great Neil Finn of Crowded House and Split Enz will be headlining the event, along with punk/ska legends The Specials. The full lineup has now been revealed and it is un-fucking-believable. Seriously.
Electronic maestro Nicolas Jaar will be returning to Australia for the first time since he and Dave Harrington blew Splendour in the Grass’ head off in 2014 with Darkside. Jaar has just released a stunning new album, Sirens, and we can’t wait to hear it live in 2017. Hopefully he’ll be announcing sideshow performances as well. Read our review of Sirens here and our feature on Jaar here.
Punk stalwarts The Damned will be delivering a ferocious set, showing off what they can do so many years after first making waves, while Kurt Vile will be returning to Australia after playing Falls Festival just last year (read our interview here). His first ever Australian tour included a trip to the ‘Sup and his return will be welcomed with open arms, as will Chain and the Gang, who were the very first international act to ever appear at Meredith.
The Australian names are running incredibly strong this year, with disco lords Total Giovanni, our fave gals Camp Cope, The Peep Tempel, Olympia, metal trio ORB and more leading the charge.
Check out the full lineup below. If you’ve never been to Golden Plains before, I can personally confirm that it’s probably the best small music festival in the country – absolutely worth a trip down to Melbourne for the weekend.
As always, tickets will be allocated via ballot – you can enter here, it’s open until next Tuesday, October 25.
Golden Plains takes place from March 11 – 13, 2017.
Golden Plains 2017 Lineup
Neil Finn
Nicolas Jaar
The Specials
Chain & The Gang
Total Giovanni
Margaret Glaspy
Kurt Vile
Princess Nokia
Teenage Fanclub
Camp Cope
The Damned
Olympia
Wax’o Paradiso
HABITS
ORB
Cash Savage And The Last Drinks
J A Z Z Party
Ausmuteants
Benny And The Flybyniters
The Dusty Millers
Brooke Powers
The Peep Tempel
Image: Supplied
An old Greek myth said that the female sirens lured you in like a fish on a baited hook. Ships sailed past the three of them and the men on board were enticed by the beauty of their voices. They were captivating yet dangerous creatures though, and their promise unfortunately far outweighed their reality.
Stranded on the island of Anthemoessa, the sirens lured passing ships towards them with their song. But the intrigued men would then meet a sad demise as they crashed onto the shallow reef in pursuit of these calls. In an album which Nicolas Jaar has openly admitted as being his most “topically cohesive and politically-minded record to date,” it is easy to see this as a potential metaphor for the current plight of his home country of America and also his adopted one of Chile.
“I need context. And I see this as a context record, for context around me and outside of me,” Jaar recently told Rolling Stone.
Sirens is the New York/Chilean producer’s second full-length album, after his first came five years ago in the form of the bewitching Space Is Only Noise. In the intervening years he kept himself busy with a constant stream of releases; be it a collaborative album with Dave Harrington (Darkside), standalone dance tracks (Nymphs), or a reimagined soundtrack entitled Pomegranates for a 1969 Russian avant-garde film. But it is here, on Sirens, where he really delves into the complex contextual and personal matters which have seemingly occupied his mind for some time.
It begins with the sound of a flag waving in the breeze on opening track Killing Time. But given the title and atmosphere of the record it could easily be a ship’s sail flapping in the open air. It seems to be getting closer and closer to some sort of conclusion, but the sound of the sirens never actually eventuate. The shattering of glass sees to that.
It’s a harsh break that ruptures the sombre soundscape that had been building up. But it occurs continually, as if shaking the listener out of the early malaise. The glass could be symbolic of a mirror reflecting all around it. And with its smashing comes the inference that reality has been shattered and the myths that go along with it have been broken too.
The crystal assault then gives way to lonely piano chords that strike out into the unknown. The stop start nature of them underlining the uncertainty that floats all around. After nearly five minutes of constructing his context, Jaar’s vocals finally make an appearance. His lyrics are hard to grasp though as they seem to dip in and out of coherence, almost as if they are getting lost in the wind upon delivery.
However, on his assertion that he’s “just killing time” there is a noticeable surge of clarity to be found in both his voice and the music. Almost as if an answer has suddenly emerged and revealed itself to him. But just when it appears that a solution has been stumbled upon, the track shifts and swerves once again, as it spirals into a crescendo of voices, before petering out with barely a whimper.
The messy and tangled The Governor then ups the ante as it builds gradually into a collage of noise. The jumbled drums fight against Jaar, as he does his best impression of an 80s synth pop vocalist.
“It was an 80 beats per minute song until I wondered what it would sound like at 160,” he explained. “I was thinking of it in regards to heavy metal and punk.”
The integration of these genres into an electronic producer’s music is an interesting one. The song stands as perhaps the greatest example of Jaar’s willingness to push boundaries and experiment with sounds, but it’s certainly not the only time he does it on Sirens. On No, for example, he incorporates Chilean harp from artist Sergio Cuevas, while the entirety of his lyrics are sung in Spanish beneath a bed of warbled synths.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L2yrz4Yvr1c
In the three track run of Leaves, No and album standout Three Sides of Nazareth, home videos capture Jaar in discussion with his father when he was a child. The conversations are in Spanish but digging a bit deeper, political and personal messages can be found threaded through the fragmented components of speech and music.
Adorning the album cover is the Spanish sentence “ya dijimos no pero el si esta en todo.” It is also said during the beginning of No. This can be translated into “we already said no but the yes is in everything.”
It relates to decades earlier when the Chilean people were fighting for their right for democracy. After a coup d’etat had put Gen. Augusto Pinochet in power against the country’s will in 1973, he had been a ruthless dictator until a plebiscite was finally called in 1988.
“A ‘Yes’ vote would mean, ‘Yes, I want Pinochet to stay in power.’ A ‘No’ vote would mean, ‘I don’t want Pinochet in power. I want free elections,’” filmmaker Pablo Larrain explained.
The phrase then can be seen as displaying the dissatisfaction that freedom essentially seems to be but a concept. The belief may be that people have it, however society can seemingly have it stripped away at any moment. People in power can always manipulate outcomes to suit their own agendas, finding a ‘yes’ where it rarely, if ever, exists.
Political statements are packaged throughout the album, concealed at times, exposed at others. The eye-catching album cover may be one of the most obvious, as it features his artist father Alfredo Jaar‘s work.
“This is not America,” it reads on a building at the entry point of 7th Avenue. It’s lost slightly amongst the glaring white glow of a store that promises to sell “cameras, copiers and videos” and the onrushing, oblivious traffic, but it is there. The questioning of the state of reality is something which is important to both father and son, but in Nicolas’ case he seems to find less answers the more he looks.
“Chapter one: We fucked up, Chapter two: We did it again, and again, and again, and again,” he sings on final track History Lessons. Yet within that and the rest of the tracks, there are no offered solutions. It’s a bleak study in the perpetual cycle of failure both in personal and global matters. Amongst the statements on issues that have plagued the world continually though, there is also parts of Jaar left behind within the music.
“I felt I cannot be talking about me, me, me. Just my feelings, my private things,” he told The Guardian about his reasons behind making Sirens. “After Pomegranates and Nymphs I wanted to really look out. But then weirdly, when I started looking out, I started looking even deeper in somehow.”
As he looked to observe the world as it was around him, he inevitably found himself getting lost within this relaying of information. “If every now and then you feel like you’ve seen it all, then be sure to remember there’s always two sides to a wall,” he poses on Nazareth. Before he declares, “I found my broken bones by the side of the road. I found my broken home by the side of the road.”
It’s stark lyrics like these which convey the emotions of a man struggling to comprehend all that he has witnessed. The switch from third person narrative to first person also showcasing his troubles at exerting his songwriting away from the personal. There is an attempt at detachment, but it doesn’t last for long.
“I’m just not there yet. I failed at doing a combination of ‘looking out,’ still being experimental, and being as emotive as the Nymphs series was,” he admitted upon the release of his new album.
Yet it is this openness to failure that is one of the most intriguing parts of Sirens. It doesn’t judge the mistakes or context around which it was made, it merely reflects them.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Ulj6GY_gVE
You can also read our comprehensive feature on Nicolas Jaar here.
Sirens is out now via Other People.
Image: Rolling Stone
Throughout his career, Nicolas Jaar has been positioned as one of the most interesting, and enigmatic electronic artists in the world. His music is melodic while flying beneath all radars, ambient and driving, hypnotic and mysterious. Couple this with his sparse releases and unique release choices (avant-garde film soundtracks, three-part EPs) and the fleeting nature of many of his projects (Darkside) keeps fans guessing, searching, starving for more.
Last week, Nicolas Jaar announced a new six-track album, Sirens. Officially set for release this Friday (September 30) it’s his second ever solo sophomore album, following 2011’s Space Is Only Noise. Last year, he released three EPs and two soundtracks.
Ahead of the official release, Jaar is now streaming the album on his own digital radio frequency, THE NETWORK.
The six track album is a lush, diverse blend of sounds, rhythms, instrumentation and experimentation in a way thoroughly unique to Jaar. With some tracks spanning three minutes and others, twelve, the scope and formation of each track is as intriguing as the sounds themselves. His deep, velvety voice lies low, toying with serious progressions and playful rhythms, constantly pushing boundaries and expanding on atmosphere, sound, and space.
Sirens officially comes out this Friday via Jaar’s own label Other People.
Read more: The Tangled Imagination of Nicolas Jaar
Image: DIYMag
Nicolas Jaar has announced a new full-length album, Sirens, set to be released on September 30, via his own label Other People. It’s his first full album since debut release Space is Only Noise in 2011, and although Jaar had been quiet for some time with regards to his own solo projects, he had about five releases in 2015. Last year he released an updated soundtrack to the 1969 film The Colour of Pomegranates, and the soundtrack to Deephan, which took home the coveted Palme D’Or prize at the Cannes Film Festival. He also released three Nymphs EPs, II, III and IV (yes, that’s not a typo.)
https://www.facebook.com/15727540611/photos/a.145825115611.237699.15727540611/10157421624640612/?type=3&theater
Other than his solo work, Jaar’s last full length album came in the form of Psychic, the legendary (and brilliant), now-defunct collaboration with Dave Harrington, known as Darkside. The 2013 album was their only album, save for the Darkside EP two years prior. To this day Darkside remains one of the greatest live shows I have ever encountered in my life, and still mourn their disbanding.
Jaar teased new music earlier in 2016, by posting artwork (which we now know to be the album cover) to social media. Recently, he launched his own radio network, on which the album will be spinning ahead of its official release.
Check out the track listing below, and the four alternate album covers.
Feature: The Tangled Imagination of Nicolas Jaar: An In-Depth Analysis
Sirens:
1. Killing Time
2. The Governor
3. Leaves
4. No
5. Three Sides of Nazareth
6. History Lesson
Image: Decibel Festival
Those into Aphex Twin‘s Drukqs or the music of minimalist classical composers Eric Satie might immediately feel at home with the music of Nicolas Jaar. But for those whose listening habits may not fall so far afield, there’s little to fear. As much the New York producer might deride popular music, there’s something undeniably accessible to the producer’s work. Last week, news surfaced that Jaar might be releasing new music soon, so we’ve taken the opportunity to reflect on his music thus far.
At only 26 and already eight years into his career, Jaar has turned out an impressive, albeit convoluted body of material. His tapering experimental music often sets itself above a more familiar undercarriage of deep house or hip-hop rhythms, occasionally peppered by his own rich vocal tones. Elastic timekeeping and evasive drum kicks signify the producers more conventional tracks. But other times tracks drift beatlessly, existing within alien sound worlds of ambient and neo-classical spontaneity.
The son of Alfredo Jaar, a Chilean-American multimedia artist and architect, it’s perhaps from his father that Jaar inherits an artistic temperament and his project hopping proclivities. Jaar may not be intentionally mysterious, but will often abandon projects and sounds shortly after adopting them, leaving fans endlessly guessing where and when he’ll traipse to next. These shifting trajectories might reflect a desire to subvert or reinterpret norms, but are also rooted in a deeply creative sense of self-exploration. Concurrently cerebral and intuitive, Jaar’s music, both solo and collaborative, often courses high-minded inspirations into a physical and intimate world of dance music.
Providing a steady musical output, Jaar has skirted away from a steady stream of albums. Instead he embraces the fluidity of electronic music. Mixes, weighty singles, remixes and collaborations form constituents parts of a labyrinthine output. Like his music itself his discography is organic. Rather than attempting to top or recreate safe-bet success, it fumbles, sidesteps and hesitates. It constantly shifts, enmeshed a constant state of renegotiation. It tells its own story.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RieXq8zGIc
Wolf + Lamb
Upon hearing Tiga‘s DJ Kicks mix in 2004, Jaar uncovered his curiosity for electronic music. After seeking out a local record store a knowing clerk forwarded the would-be artist a copy of Chilean producer Ricardo Villalobos‘ Thé Au Harem D’Archimède. Jaar begun cutting his own tracks shortly after. It wasn’t long before the 17 year-old producer’s The Student caught the ear of NYC post-minimal house and techno label Wolf + Lamb; the track’s scraping beats and mutating piano fills exemplifies the experimentation and self-exploration which has since characterised Jaar’s career.
Jaar’s unconventional production perhaps nudged the label even more so than they influenced him. While Jaar has derided his work with Wolf + Lamb, these formative tracks are a perfect introduction to the producer’s sparing minimalism and subtle experimentation. Jaar may not hold single Significant Others, compilation El Bandido and 2010 single A Time For Us in very high regard, yet in hindsight, it was these are the works which cemented the fledgling producer’s reputation.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Ob10-uhiLs
Clown & Sunset
Years after striking up an unlikely collaborative relationship with schoolmates Soul Keita and Nikita Quasim on an excursion to Mexico in 2004, Jaar co-founded the Clown and Sunset label with the pair in 2009. Working with his newly minted label, Jaar made contributions to a collaborative EP Democracy alongside Keita in 2009, and dropped single Russian Dolls in March 2010. Morphing between house and a kind of ethnic folk dance, the track marked an explorative precursor to his feted debut. He followed up with dubstep leaning Don’t Break My Love paired with the more beat driven Why Don’t You Save Me in 2011.
Jaar would also contribute John the Revelator and the theatrical Marquises to EPs Sunset of a Clown, Vol 1 and Sunset of a Clown, Vol 2 respectively. But the tripartite efforts of the label were not to last; the project was discontinued in August 2013 preceding the launch of Jaar’s new label Other People.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I3-Oz7sjecE
Love You Gotta Lose Again
Ever productive Jaar dropped EP, Love You Gotta Lose Again via Double Standard Records in 2010. Comprised of three tracks, WOUH, Love You Gotta Lose Again and Don’t Believe the Hype each cut incorporates infectiously chugging slow grooves. This heavier beat centric minimal house played a more conservative counterpoint to Jaar’s previous output on Clown and Sunset or Wolf + Lamb.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQg0S4F8gGU
Marks & Angles
Released by Circus Company, a Parisian label curating unconventional material falling within the dance-music spectrum, Jaar’s Marks and Angles EP comprises of tracks Marks & Angles. The former returns to John the Revelator’s gospel-tinged slant. In contrast, the melancholy of Angles downtempo funk proves even more infectious. Like his earliest works, Jaar tackles a more conventional sound, but like never before he excels. There’s a balance of oddness and infectious rhythm that testifies to the producer’s ability to contextualise a sense of otherness within a more conventional sound.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hthopoazpdg
Don’t Break My Love
Jaar has cropped up in more than few compilations, but for the first time he curated his own via Clowns and Sunset. Released as both a cube-like musical device and more conventionally, the LP places Jaar in completed creative control. With contributions form the label’s stable of artists, it also featured two original cuts from Jaar himself. This said the standout is Nicolas Jaar, Will Epstein, Dave Harrington, and Ian Sims‘ collaboration Ishmael. Seductive Stygian brass evocative of John Zorn slides across a seductive rhythmic pulses.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4gnNagNjHCA
Darkside
Perhaps the most highly regarded release from Clown and Sunset was 2011’s Darkside EP. The collaboration came about after Jaar connected with his touring guitarist Dave Harrington through their shared improvisations. With Jaar working with as one-half of Darkside, the duo went on to release Psychic in 2013. The fan response to the hypnotic electronic psychedelia of the debut LP hinted that the success of the duo might quickly eclipsed Jaar’s solo work, and is today regarded as one of the most triumphant releases in his career and in the genre as a whole. Despite touring extensively following the success of the album, the group folded in 2014, breaking hearts of thousands. Given that the conclusion of the project was cryptically stated in the duo’s own words as “coming to an end, for now,” it seems very likely that future collaborations could be on the cards.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fk5OG5O3ZlE
Nico’s Bluewave Edits
Released July 2011, a number of unreleased remixes emerged as Nico’s Bluewave Edits via Wolf + Lamb’s offshoot, W+L Black. A somewhat tired revision of Missy Elliot’s Work It, is a reminder that these tracks throwback to the earlier era. Likely a quick cash in on Jaar’s success, the track is something which could have remained buried. The reworking of The Blow‘s Hey Boy shines brighter, but only the more radical reinterpretation of Mike And The Censations’ soulful There’s Nothing I Can Do About It as What My Last Girl Put Me Through shows Jaar hit anything close to his usual stride.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQ_hP3A0WXE
Space is Only Noise 2011 LP
Cut at age 21 while attending Brown University, Jaar’s debut LP is a celebration of the improvisational and spontaneous, something which can resonate just as deeply as anything within the tighter strictures of more rigid genre formats. It was with this album that Jaar came into his own. The gradually growing buzz surrounding his work reached fever pitch following the album’s release, shrouding debut LP Space Is Only Noise. To this day the album still does the best job of showcasing the immensity of Jaar’s formidable talents. At the time it’s low-speed BPM and experimental piano fills went against the grain New York and Brooklyn scenes. Rhythmic and melodic lures are used sparingly. As IDM existed as a response to hardcore techno, Jaar’s music sits against the 128 BPM fuelled techno popular at the time of his debut.
Too Many Kids Finding Rain in the Dust channels the unlikely influence of Nick Cave, while Balance Her Within Your Eyes casts a serene soundscape. Spectres of the Future invokes the skipping beats, vinyl crackle of trip hop. the album easily remains the most accessible of Jaar’s works. The shear breadth of genres hopped, shows how formidable the full brunt of the producer’s creative focus can be. Touching on brilliance it’s remained his only album to date, leaving no shortage of demand for more. Following the release Jaar would later part ways with Circus Company. Shifting away from an album based approach, Jaar instead pursued a less conventional trajectory.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-_c0o8LAaM
The Nymphs Series
Considering the erroneously numbered string of EPs known as Nymphs, argument can be made that the series can be considered to comprise an album of their very own. If not, at the very least a chapter in Jaar’s musical history. Separated over a course of a year, the releases proceed under a unifying philosophy of experimentation.
Nymphs III premiered the idea with the lengthy house experimentation of Swim and the piano led Mistress. Nymphs II followed on with the brilliant The Three Sides of Audrey and Why She’s All Alone Now and No One is Looking At U. Fight (Nymphs IV) melded glitch and levitational breakbeats into a single track of the same name. Nymphs I follows suite, with Why You Have to Save Me crescendoing into something which might resemble the artist’s most infectious dance track. There’s a distinctive sonic identity to the series. Whether Nymphs has concluded or will be contemporaneously ongoing alongside future albums remains unknown.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGeNUgizTaM
Pomegranates
Pomegranates served as an alternate soundtrack to 1969 The Colour of Pomegranates, by avant-garde Russian director Sergei Parajanov. Upon viewing the film, Jaar became so fixated that he composed and synced his own soundtrack. Here the producer continues to play with the convention of the album format; Pomegranates deftly sidesteps the demand for a follow-up to Jaar’s debut EP yet Pomegranates might sit closer to a full-fledged album.
This said the conceptual slant and noise leanings distance the work from the broader appeal of Space is Only Noise. Yet for those with more experimental leanings this may represent be Jaar’s greatest work. The strictures of film scoring push the producer’s minimalism to the extreme, providing a creative impetus that establishes the LP as one of Jaar’s most compelling outings.
Garden of Eden weaves dense, ambient and experimental noise. Shimmering textures and pain fills permeate the mix and the better part of the album. Churning and roiling with sound, the album melds into a self-contained soundworld. Muse touches on his recurrent and self-professed affinity for Erik Satie. Barring Club Capital, there’s a rhythmic scarcity to the LP.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eycLcmCNZ04
Remixes
A host of remixes complement Jaar’s original works. With nearly two dozen ‘official’ remixes to his name, these reworkings are another wellspring of Jaar’s creativity. Tracks like Shlohmo’s Rained The Whole Time and Maceo Plex’s Gravy Train representing the apex of production nuance. There are also more straight ahead reworkings of bigger names like Architecture and Helsinki and Florence + The Machine. Jaar also worked with Grizzly Bear and Brian Eno, remixing works from their most recent albums for 2013’s record store day. For savvy fans there are a host of unofficial mixes floating around the ether of the web such as an uncredited remix of Kanye West’s Blood on the Leaves. Jaar is in turn, has included remixes of his own work on a number of his own releases and on compilation Nicolas Jaar – Remixes Vol. 1.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MF3yEa4-vDs
Ephemera
While rock fans in the heyday of vinyl might have complained about the woes of tracking down obscure bootlegs, the confluence of cyberspace and electronic producers is infinitely more complex. The artefacts of Jaar’s music spreads ever outward. Best left to the die-hard fans, a little digging can reveal some compelling tracks. Jaar has continued on his obsession for film scores, producing the official soundtrack to 2015 French crime drama Dheepan. Jaar has also lent his production talents to tracks like DJ Sluggo‘s GHETTO and Dave Harrington‘s This There Was One Heart But a Thousand Thoughts.
Likening some of his efforts to feeling close to making an album itself, Jaar has also released a slew of mixes. These in themselves constitute densely entropic and experimental bodies of work, equally on par with Nicolas Jaar’s other works. His BBC mix bears all the artifice of an album; ambient background drones string together a fragmented soundscape calling on everything from Leonard Cohen to Twin Peaks, and ambient sounds lure the listener into a state of sublimation.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X7JQu06ylFM
Conclusion + Future Works
Nicolas Jaar is in some ways a conduit, someone who sees a long traditional of unconventional music and rather than lodge it in stodgy academic context or leave it languishing in obscurity laces it into his own production. Seen things with new eyes, he takes the role of a rebellious equaliser, spurred by creativity and indifference to popular concerns. His music snakes through to the true ambits of the artist; reinterpreting reality in different ways and finding the beauty in small detail.
Showing no signs of approaching critical mass, what is striking about Jaar’s work is simply the quality. With moments touching on pure brilliance, Jaar continues to excel as he expands his purview and absorbs new musical ideas. Jaar puts a youthful face and maverick enthusiasm to the sounds of cult composers. Discarding stodgier elements with something contemporary, Jarr may reject pop, but only insofar the notion delimits a bigger picture of music. His music is accidental, off-kilter and mesmerically dark as often as it’s joyous, inviting and slickly constructed. Often it rejects limitation, but it can equally work within conventional taste. Jaar’s music is constantly challenging, changing and renegotiation of self.
Announcing the conclusion of the Other People subscriptions service, earlier this month Jaar debuted a mysterious internet radio, the Other People Network. While official channels have remained ambiguous to what the project will entail, what is known is that it contains 333 channels of continuous sound. This news is accompanied by hints at a new project dubbed Sirens. Whether this will again see the producer flirting with the more conventional album format and focused effort, sit closer to the Nymphs series or take off in an unforeseen direction music remains to bee seen. Whatever is in store it’s likely to be worth the wait.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGeNUgizTaM
Image: Hypetrack
Dave Harrington, best known for his collaboration with Nicolas Jaar as DARKSIDE, has announced a brand new project, The Dave Harrington Group. A new album titled Become Alive is set to be released next month, and will feature a number of his “favourite musicians and closest friends” – which, yes, includes Nicolas Jaar.
In a statement Harrington talks about the formation and sound of the Dave Harrington Group, describing it as more improvisational jazz. He explains:
This record is the result of improvising with different combinations of people, and then processing and re-sculpting those improvisations—isolating passages, turning them into something new, overdubbing layers of myself, maybe taking something from another piece and superimposing it out of its original context. But each track is always me interacting with other people, sometimes just one or two… sometimes ten. There was flute, vibes, organ, Fender Rhodes, guitar, bass, two drummers, percussion, sax… just full-on, over-blown energy. I took all that and treated it as raw material in the mixing stage… but when you have ten people in a room, you can only edit so much. Everything is in every microphone anyway—it’s all connected, so it’s about turning it into whatever it wants to be.
Listen to the album’s title track below:
Reflecting on DARKSIDE, Harrington also explained how it influenced the new project:
I used to be someone who didn’t really care about recording. I would play house parties, free jazz in art galleries, whatever. All live, all the time… When we started DARKSIDE, that’s when I became really excited about making a record and started seeing recording and working in the studio as a creative outlet. Then, I got really inspired by that specific moment in history when jazz improvisation meets studio technique, the late ’60s, early ’70s—and I just wanted to get a bunch of close friends together to play.
Become Alive will be released April 15 via Nicolas Jaar’s own label Other People.
Tracklist:
1. White Heat
2. Slides
3. The Prophet
4. Cities of the Red Night
5. Steels
6. Become Alive
7. Spectrum
8. All I Can Do
Image: Consequence of Sound
Today is the last day ever that we can say Yeezus is the most recent Kanye West album, with Ye gearing up to drop his highly anticipated seventh studio album, The Life Of Pablo. Now, multiple name changes aside, you cannot deny the level of hype surrounding this album, whether you are a Kanye fan or not. So what better way to celebrate the arrival of a new Yeezy album than with a remix by one of the world’s best producers, Nicolas Jaar?
According to Pitchfork, the track was initially produced for a commissioned artwork in 2014 for the Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s ART+FILM series. Focussing on artist Barbara Kruger, the piece was titled Picturing Barbara Kruger and is a 5 and a half minute video of Kruger discussing her process and work. The best part however – at least for us – is the soundtrack.
Pitchfork has said that Kruger herself requested West’s music for the piece, but a Jaar remix just takes it to a whole new level. Even though the remix is merely a soundtrack for Kruger’s narration, which is very interesting in its own right, it is still pretty awesome to hear.
Let’s hope with all the fuss about Kanye’s latest album, this may prompt Jaar to release the track to the public. However, the producer has been known to remain rather elusive, so only time will tell.
Image: Decibel Festival
Nicolas Jaar has blessed us all with a brand new 66 minute mix for Resident Advisor. The mix, recorded last month in Brooklyn features a smattering of tracks by jaar himself, in among music from Angel, Talk Talk, Keith Jarrett and more.
The mix has been released by RA in celebration of their 500th podcast. Ben UFO, Dixon, Steffi and Omar-S have also donated mixes to the publication.
Listen to and download Nicolas Jaar’s mix right here and the remaining four here.
Track listing:
Kayan Kalhor & Ali Bahraini Fard – Between the Heavens and Me
Alva Noto – Module 1
Ø – Syvâys
ENA – Divided 10
Ancestral Voices – Vine Of The Soul
Lydia Lunch – Conspiracy Of Women
Talk Talk – The Rainbow
Lashun Pace – I know I’ve Been Changed
Terekke – Wav1
Angel – Dark Matter Leak
Barn Owl – Lotus Cloud
Keith Jarrett – You Don’t Know What Love Is
Diseño Corbusier – Chiquillo & Golpe de Amistad
Against All Logic – LKJ
Kobayashi Maru – Typical Male Behavior
Steve Reich – Come Out
AAL – Fourteen Steps To A Better Life
Angel – Out
How To Dress Well/Lorenzo Senni – Words I Don’t Remember (Original dub)
Skee Mask – Cylo
Nicolas Jaar – No One Is Looking At U
Terry Riley – Harp Of New Albion
Muslimgauze – Untitled
Marcel Khalife & Mahmoud Darwish – Ahmad Emerges From Ancient Wounds
Nicolas Jaar – Swim
Dialogue: $13 Opera For Peace
Sound of two orange-tufted sunbirds running into each other mid-flight (Inaudible)