Nicolas Jaar

Nicolas Jaar stands among the most unpredictable and exploratory figures in dance music across the late 2000s and 2010s, shaping introspective downtempo pieces that draw from jazz and contemporary classical sources while also embracing minimal techno. Following his rise in the techno underground through early EPs and singles, he reached wider listeners with the 2011 arrival of his widely praised debut album Space Is Only Noise. He joined multi-instrumentalist Dave Harrington to form the neo-psychedelic duo Darkside, whose sole album Psychic from 2013 likewise drew strong acclaim. Although subsequent releases under his own name often explored more abstract territory, he kept producing dance music through aliases such as A.A.L. ("Against All Logic"), later gathering the project's output on the 2018 album 2012-2017.

Born in New York, Jaar spent much of his childhood in Santiago de Chile, birthplace of his father, artist and filmmaker Alfredo Jaar, before returning to New York prior to his teenage years. In 2004, inspired by Ethiopian jazz and Erik Satie, he began experimenting with music production and advanced significantly once his father acquired copies of Ricardo Villalobos' Thé au Harem d'Archimède and Luomo's Vocal City. While folding these passions and discoveries into his work, he connected with Wolf + Lamb's Gadi Mizrahi and issued his first release on the label in 2008. The five-track digital EP The Student showed Jaar's clear debt to Villalobos' churning, extended, percussion-driven productions. Vinyl releases on Wolf + Lamb and Circus Company followed in 2009 and 2010.

Space Is Only Noise, Jaar's debut album, appeared on Circus in 2011. The broadly eclectic record earned major critical praise and drew supporters from both dance and indie rock audiences. The initial pressing contained a track that used an uncleared sample of Ray Charles' "I Got a Woman"; the song was removed from later editions. Jaar assembled a live band with guitarist Dave Harrington and keyboardist Will Epstein, and the trio toured the album for three years, earning further recognition. Jaar and Harrington also formed Darkside, releasing a self-titled EP in 2011 and the full-length Psychic on Matador in 2013. Psychic achieved further critical success and entered the Billboard Top 200 album chart. The duo toured in support before disbanding in 2014.

Jaar kept producing, remixing, performing, and DJ'ing as a solo artist. He founded the label Other People, which released his own material alongside recordings by diverse rock, electronic, and experimental artists including Valentin Stip, DJ Slugo, and an archival live album by Teenage Jesus & the Jerks, Lydia Lunch's early band. In 2015 Jaar issued Pomegranates, a largely ambient album created as a soundtrack to the 1969 experimental film The Color of Pomegranates. That same year he composed the score for the French crime drama Dheepan, which won the Palme d'Or at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival. He also released the Nymphs single series; while most volumes appeared on Other People, the fourth installment, the single track "Fight," came out on the Belgian label R&S. His second proper solo album, Sirens, arrived in 2016. The surprise 2018 release 2012-2017 collected dancefloor-oriented material recorded under the A.A.L. (Against All Logic) alias. R&S reissued the Nymphs series as a triple-LP in early 2019. Jaar maintained a prolific pace in 2020 with the releases of 2017-2019 under his A.A.L. (Against All Logic) name, along with Cenizas and Telas.