Nicolas Jaar: Artist You Should Know

From KCRW DJ Mathieu Schreyer:

After a few critically-acclaimed releases on Wolf and Lamb, the soon to be Brown University graduate is back with a full length album on Circus Company called “Space is Only Noise.”

The 20-year-old New Yorker (by way of Chile) delivers an uncompromising manifesto on traces of the past, love lost, and specters of the future.

I feel like Nicolas’ music not only embraces all the music that I love and understand (jazz, soul, funk, hip hop, Latin, Ethiopian, soulful electronic ), but also compliments them very well. Also, the more I learned about him, the more I wanted to know. I found out he was born and raised in Chile where his father, Alfredo Jaar, is an artist and he also has French and Palestinian heritage. Like me, he has lived abroad, traveled with his family and had a multi-cultural upbringing, which made me feel even more connected to him and his music.

Stream “Keep Me There,” off “Space is Only Noise.”

Download it here

That track has been on heavy rotation both on my show and at home. In fact, I have been playing every single one of his releases on my show since he dropped the “Time for Us” EP a couple of years ago, which rarely happens!

If you are only hearing of him for the first time, I highly encourage you to go back and check out his older releases, especially the aforementioned EP and the “Russian Dolls” EP.

He has done a string of fine remixes as well.I suggest you check out his remix for Matthew Dear’s “I Put a Smell on You,” or Azari and III’s “Into the Night.” And my personal favorite, the one he did for No Regular Play’s” Owe Me” which got people calling in the KCRW studio each and every time I played it!

No Regular Play – Owe Me (Nicolas Jaar remix) (Wolf + Lamb 2009) by Clown and Sunset

— Mathieu Schreyer