Nicolas Jaar - Space Is Only Noise

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

Win Win - Win Win

What do you end up with when a producer comes forward with a project of his own? History has shown that the results are mixed at best. James Blake proved that it is possible with the release of his first long player earlier this month and Kanye West has long established his solo career. But on the other end of the spectrum someone like Timbaland has failed to sufficiently expand his sound for a solo effort and even produced some of his worst work yet. And for someone like Diplo the the result was nuanced; on his solo album Florida he fell a bit  short of really adding much to the things he had already done for others but on his co-production with Swift (Major Lazer) he managed to step outside the box. The question arises again here, with the release of Win Win's self-titled debut. Win Win is Spank Rock producer XXXchange and Devlin, one of Spank Rock's tour dj's. So as far as credentials go, they're in the green.

And the album takes a promising start with cutting indie track 'Victim', propelled by a semi-raw, semi-hip guitar riff. But in the spirit of producers sometimes being somewhat unbalanced solo-artists, track number two is a bit of a swing-and-miss. ‘Future Again’ is a pretty standard dance track, nothing out of the ordinary. It just sounds a bit flat after the opening track. ‘Interleave’ shortly rekindles hope that things will get back on track. And ‘Releaserpm’ - a funky peace of world music meets electronics featuring Gang Gang Dance's Lizzie Bougatsos - can continue on that note. By the way: if one song deserved a spot on the album in remix format it probably should have been this one (check the video below, quite frankly not a single track on Win Win equals it, not even the original version). After those highlights the album takes a final turn for the worst.

There are definitely some good ideas on Win Win. Just not enough to fill an entire album. There are, however, plenty of regular ideas. Sure, optimists would say that that makes this a very eclectic piece of work. True, but it also means that it’s not always clear sound the duo is after exactly. And all too often they opt for the easy scenario instead of really trying to push the envelope, throwing in some store brand beats to avoid losing accessibility. As if every interesting idea needs to be compensated so as not to spook the mainstream crowd. With songs like ‘Releaserpm’ and ‘Interleave’ Win Win shows what it might have up its sleeve. But apart from those  rare memorable moments the two don’t show enough to really impress. Too little at least to determine whether the stronger songs are lucky shots or all the rest is the result of misplaced laziness.

1. Planet Playground
2. Victim (ft. Blaqstarr)
3. Future Again (Oakland) (ft. Angela Sarakan)
4. Mother Mary
5. Releasermp (ft. Lizzie Bougatsos)
6. Interleave (ft. Alexis Taylor)
7. Cada Buen Dia
8. Pop A Gumball (ft. Spank Rock, Andrew W.K. & Matt Sweeney)
9. Distorted Reality
10. Glen beck
11. Ghosts/Delirium
12. The Nature Of Transcendent Forces (ft. Douglas Armour)
13. Not Too Late
14. Not Too Late 2 (ft. Pixeltan)

La Roux - Gold Edition

2009 produced some great albums and ditto newcomers and one of those wat without a doubt electropop duo La Roux, composed by singer Elly Jackson and producer Ben Langmaid - who always preferred to stay out of the limelight. Their self-titled debut - a pop triumph characterised by its strong eighties influences and Jackson's signature high-pitched voice - was a refreshingl, thought-out chronic of love, mixing straight-to-the-heart lyrics with cheerful electro sounds. To bridge the gap till their follow-up album, on wich the band is currently working, they're now releasing the Gold Edition EP, a ten-track ... well, gold edition of their debut. Premisse here is not so much to improve 'La Roux' - why would you want to change an already good thing. The Gold Edition is simply adding things, some remixes, b-sides and a few live versions to be specific.


Centerpiece of the EP is 'In For The Kill', the song that got everything started for Jackson and Langmaid. That song must have been remixed a gazillion times, but with this Kanye West remix she does still manage to pull a surprise out of her hat. Third track 'Under My Thumb' is a very enjoyable Rolling Stones cover, a song she has also made her own (it's been part of her live repertoire for a long while now) through her signature powerful, yet melancholic sound. And of course the Gold Edition would be incomplete without Skream's 'In for the Kill' remix. Older than the album itself, but a key version in putting La Roux on the radar. The EP also contains a few live versions, traditionally a bit of a soar spot. Inspite of always putting up a very decent show, their live shows are never fully able to convey the same energy of the album. Here however, she went for accoustic versions, thus avoiding falling flat on the wrong moments. The Abbey Road version of 'Bulletproof' proves that the band has a broader range than purely electronic. And with a loungy interpretation of - once again - 'In For The Kill' (with a perfectly believable Jackson on the bass guitar) the band shows that these songs are as much about the lyrics as about the beats and lend themselves to adaptations like these.


Truth be told, you won't hear much you don't already know. And one could wonder what the relevance is of a couple of remixes and live version of songs some two years after their original release date. So no, the Gold Edition isn't really a shocker in terms of novelty value - even given the Kanye West feature there's only so much you can do with songs like 'In For The Kill'. But For the fans this EP will have fairly little relevance being that they will (or should) have pretty much heard everything already. But then again, for those fans that won't really be of much importance. Containing some decent remixes and interesting live versions, the Gold Edition is mainly intented as a warm-up for the next album and as a little treat in the meantime. And speaking from the fan-perspective: it's much appreciated!

Tracklist

1. In For The Kill (ft. Kanye West)

2. Finally My Saviour

3. Under My Thumb

4. I'm Not Your Toy (Jack Beats Remix)

5. In For The Kill (Skream's Let's Get Ravey Remix)

6. Quicksand (Boy 8 Bit Remix)

7. Bulletproof (Zinc Remix)

8. Tigerlily (Demo)

9. Bulletproof (Intimate Session at Abbey Road, Acoustic)

10. In For The Kill (Vevo Lounge Version)