At only 19 years old Nicolas Jaar is already considered to be one of the rising stars of the electronica-univers and with good reason. Born in New York, Jaar relocated to Chile at a young age only to return to his home town a couple of years ago. Making music since he was 14 years old he is now plating up his first - and highly anticipated - LP, and all of this while attending Brown University. Faut-le-faire. The common thread throughout his debut album is his search to creating an organic whole. As if the whole thing just came together. Effortlessly, random, by chance almost. And water playes a leading role in that concept.
Eery opener 'Etre' immediatly sets the mood with the sound of waves softly washing ashore. The actual song consists of not much more than a collage-like combination of spoken word soundbits, melancholic piano melodies and recordings of all sorts of undefined noise. It feels vintage, almost old-fashioned even, like a polaroid picture. 'Colombs' follows that trend of minimalism, introducing vocals - in French - into the piece. Maybe the not most accessible opening due in terms of sing-along-quality, but no less intruiging for that reason. At times the album feels more like a mixtape than a longplayer in that it has a certain cut-and-paste structure. Like a high-quality homemade craft project. Sometimes a bit difficult to enter as well, but never overly stilted. And bursting with influences and musical styles. Track number four 'Too Many Kids Finding Rain In The Dust' makes for a first full-blown song, drawing influences from Eastern genres. 'Keep Me There', with it's melodic humming and minimal electronic coating genre, combines electro with elements of tango reminding of Gotan Project. Towards the end he blends in some saxophone tunes. Random, yet seemlessly. And how could this album be complete without one extremely recognisable sample. In casu, Ray Charles' 'I Got A Woman' on 'I Got A'. For some reason, there's something undeniably French about it. Maybe because of the multitude of 'Old World' influences, maybe because of its smooth feel or maybe just because of the soundbits in French (even I am not immune to subliminal messaging). Either way, the intricate concept in combination with the meticulous, stylized exection reveal that Nicolas Jaar has much more up his sleave. You wouldn't expect any less from an Ivy League man.
In the end you should probably just let his music speak for itself. After all, as his last.fm profile stated, 'he'd prefer you to simply listen to his music instead of reading this'. Far be it from me to argue with that.
Tracklist
1. Etre
2. Colomb
3. Sunflower
4. Too Many Kids Finding Rain In The Dust
5. Keep Me There
6. I Got A
7. Problems With The Sun
8. Space Is Only Noise If You Can See It
9. Almost Fell
10. Balance Her In Between Your Eyes
11. Specters Of The Future
12. Trace
13. Variations
14. tre
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