Nicolas Jaar (CL/US)

website

Nicolas Jaar is a Chilean-American composer and electronic music producer with Palestinian and French roots. His musical style evolves between influences inherited from jazz, soul, or cinema and is characterized by rather slow and elegiac atmospheres. After a handful of ep’s released in 2008, including Time for Us in 2010, which was highly praised by trade magazines, he released his first album Space Is Only Noise in 2011, which brought him great critical acclaim. Contrary to the majors and the commercial music mentality, Jaar became an independent producer and founded his own record label, Clown & Sunset in 2009, which was succeeded by the Other People label in 2013. Parallel to his solo career, he collaborates with many of his friends, Sasha Spielberg with Just Friends and Dave Harrington with whom he forms the duo Darkside. Nicolas Jaar’s music, categorized in the house genre while having jazz and soul intonations, is described by Mixmag as “populated by eerie transitions, displaced sonic objects, moments when an unexpected warmth seeps in.”

In 2010, Tony Naylor of the Guardian points to what characterizes Jaar’s music: a compromise between dance music, with its rhythms that come and go, and an emotional side that emanates from more organic musical influences; the journalist notes how difficult his compositions are to categorize, taking Time for Us or The Students as examples at the crossroads of genres. The rejection of codes, of categorization but also of his cultural heritage off the beaten path of dance music, lead Jaar to say he is incapable of making techno. His live performances are praised by critics for the resulting sensibility; Les inrockuptibles magazine says his live shows are “beautiful, goosebump-inducing mechanisms.” Resident Advisor points out how Nicolas Jaar “proves that you don’t need to constantly get the crowd dancing to rally fans.”