Space Is Only Noise - Nicolas Jaar

Nicolas Jaar has graduated-- Space is Only Noise is a tour de force with few modern equals. Jaar gently coaxes his listener into the experience from the opening sounds of rolling waves on ‘être’, but quickly transitions into the sophisticated percussion and meandering melodies that characterise his sound. Jaar seeks, and often finds, beauty in melancholy on the first few tracks of the album. As the album begins to accelerate with ‘Too many kids finding rain in the dust’, Jaar confronts us with the often forgotten reality that our sadness is not mutually exclusive from the dance floor.

Suddenly, on ‘Keep me there’, Jaar’s voice appears over the delicious, rumbling melody. “We’re in a really bad bed, right?” he remarks. “Mm– it’s not really a bed. It’s like a balloon” responds a sultry female voice as they both crumble away in laughter. Though your hips stir to the relentless bassline and the sexiness of the voices, your heart is jolted out of its luxurious malaise when horns erupts seconds later.

“How can you talk about a landscape without showing the sky and the earth?” a voice asks, translating from the French on ‘être’. So Jaar concludes, revisiting the same track to end the album. Complete landscapes such as these are only realised in contrast- the indulgent against the reserved, the sky against the earth; lightness and darkness.

Space is Only Noise is a tour de force with few modern equals, and a great sign of things to come from one of electronic music’s most exciting producers. 

Track Listing And Details

1. être
2. Colomb
3. Sunflower
4. Too Many Kids Finding Rain In The Dust
5. Keep Me There
7. Problems With The Sun
8. Space Is Only Noise If You Can See
9. Almost Fell
10. Balance Her In Between Your Eyes
11. Specters Of The Future
12. Trace
13. Variations
14. ^tre