Nicolas Jaar

Nicolas Jaar is a Chilean-Palestinian-American composer and artist based in London.

A prolific talent, Jaar first captured attention when he was still a teenager, as one of the most exciting acts in New Yorks underground dance scene in the late 2000s. In January 2011 he released his debut album, Space Is Only Noise to critical acclaim from Pitchfork, the Guardian. Resident Advisor, Mixmag, Crack Magazine.and more. He later debuted a live concept called From Scratch, where, in front of a live audience, he sampled records he had bought that day. The first iteration happened in 2012 at MOMA PS1; it was a five-hour concert with collaboration from Will Epstein, videographer Ryan Staake, dancer Lizzie Feidelson and singer Sasha Spielberg. He has also performed From Scratch in Boulder, Colorado, and Montréal, Quebec.

In 2015  Jaar released a largely ambient record entitled Pomegranates for free, loosely based around the 1969 Soviet film The Color of Pomegranates by an Armenian filmmaker Parajanov. (2015 marked the 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide). His second studio album, Sirens, was released in 2016 via his label Other People (an imprint of which also has also published work by Lydia Lunch, Pierre Bastien, Tomaga, DJ Slugo, William Basinski, Kouhei Matsunaga, Laurel Halo, Lucrecia Dalt, Charlotte Collin, and Julia Holter.)

As well as his solo work, Jaar is one third of DARKSIDE with Dave Harrington and Tlacael Esparza. He also makes music as Against All Logic or A.A.L. In 2018, he released an album as A.A.L.  titled 2012–2017, described by Pitchfork as one of the best albums of the year. In 2020, he released another album under the same alias entitled 2017 – 2019.

As a producer, Jaar has worked with the likes of Brian Eno, Grizzly Bear, FKA Twigs and Buzzy Lee, and has been sampled by The Weeknd in the track “Call Out My Name’. He has composed the score for Jacques’ Audiard Palm D’Or winner Dheepan, and Pablo Larrain’s 2019 film Ema.

In 2020 he released two albums, Cenizas and Telas, both of which received accolades from critics. In 2023 came Intiha, a collaboration with Pakistani-American artist Ali Sethi which splices bits of Telas into inky soundscapes that twist around Sethi’s largely improvised riffs on Urdu poetry. His latest albums, 2024’s Piedras 1 and Piedras 2, “weaves a story of Chilean colonial history, military dictatorship, and Palestinian erasure into a dizzying mixture of abstract sonics and avant pop.” (Pitchfork).

“an artist who, 12 years into his career, has little to prove about his range or ability.” – Pitchfork

“in just 40 minutes, you’ll hear Suicide’s louche techno-punk (albeit slathered in high-gloss electronica and French lounge jazz), Karl Hyde of Underworld’s dada chants, lashings of Talk Talk, and Phil Collins doing Chilean cumbia.” – The Guardian