Nicolas Jaar - Space Is Only Noise

Circus Company

Nicolas Jaar's debut(?) album was released on this day in 2011, merely a month after Jaar's 21st birthday. At such a young age one can only wonder how a sound can be as fully formed and of its own this early on in a career.

Jaar must have encountered a divine, or demonic, entity of sorts as a child because the talent on show is second to none. An understanding of setting the mood and meticulous attention to the ebb and flow of a work is on full show. Never giving too much, Jaar dishes out breadcrumbs to entice the listener into a bleak underbelly, exuding dense smog-like vapor and dodgy characters. A lot of the tracks here can be looked upon as vague and lacking structure. This helps with the atmosphere as it loosens up its potential to pretty much sit center stage as main focus. Jaar taps into deep, desolate feelings throughout. These tracks reside in haunted halls. A seance would be the perfect occasion to release this album and witness its full potential.

Jaar pulls up the dreary, colourless tones of a Godspeed You! Black Emperor and adds an out of kilter twitch which in turn gives birth to a brooding, heavy as hell, some would say uncomfortable, experience. Nico would move into more dancaable territory under the Against All Logic moniker later in the decade. The foundations for which were set here. The mood and somewhat pessimistic aesthetic would transfer over and work wonders just as well.

Title track 'Space is Only Noise' can be seen as the stepping stone towards the AAL output. It also ranks as one of the finest tracks to come out of the 10's in my eyes. I can still remember my first time hearing it. A re-shaping of what music could be was in store. A game-changer if there ever was one.

Favorite Track: Specters of the Future

February 14th, 2011.