Nicolas Jaar
| Nicolas Jaar | |
|---|---|
Nicolas Jaar live at Rex Club in Paris
|
|
| Background information | |
| Also known as | Nico |
| Born |
10 January 1990 New York City, New York, US |
| Genres | Electronic, experimental, house, deep house |
| Associated acts | Darkside |
| Website | nicolasjaar |
Nicolas Jaar (born January 10, 1990) is a Chilean-American composer and recording artist based in New York. Among his notable works are the albums Space Is Only Noise (2011), Pomegranates (2015) and Sirens (2016). He is known in the club world for his various dance 12" EPs he put out from 2008 to 2011. Since his first album, he has embarked on more explorative directions, performing a 5-hour improvisational concert at PS1, releasing a large volume of experimental recordings through his label 'Other People' (Including works by like minded artists Lydia Lunch, William Basinski, and Lucretia Dalt). In 2015, Jaar scored Dheepan by director Jacques Audiard (winner of the Palme d'Or at Cannes 2015). Jaar is also half of the band Darkside (Psychic, 2013).
Jaar was born in New York to Palestinian-Chilean artist Alfredo Jaar and French-Chilean mother Evelyne Meynard. "Jaar ascribes the melancholy in his music to the six years his parents were separated, when he moved at the age of 3 with his mother from New York to Chile, until the family was reunited in New York." In 2007, he met Gadi Mizrahi and Zev Eisenberg who ran the legendary Marcy hotel parties in Brooklyn, NY. After hearing his early works, Mizrahi suggested 17 year-old Jaar to put a 4x4 kick drum underneath his largely experimental compositions. This was Jaar's first foray into dance music- documented in his first release on Mizrahi's label Wolf & Lamb entitled "The Student". "Back then, Jaar says, everything D.J.’s were playing was 128 beats per minute. The stuff he was doing was almost half that speed, with improvised piano haunting the tracks."
Jaar then spent four years in underground dance circles, crafting rough, hip hop influenced house music (examples include "Love you gotta lose again", "Angles"). Initially made as jokes to make his mother laugh and dance, Jaar made two songs where he sang in his native Spanish ("Mi Mujer" and "El Bandido"). Jaar did not intend for them to come out. He changed his mind in 2010, as he felt the songs were his way of answering to what he deemed as exploitative sampling of Latin American culture by white European DJs.
...
Wikipedia