NICOLAS JAAR - Sirens

Despite being just twenty-six years old, Nicolas Jaar (born 1990) is now recognized as a leading figure on the global electronic music scene; a role he's earned thanks to two albums, the unexpected synth-pop-jazz debut “Space Is Only Noise” (2011) and the surprising “Pomegranates” – the soundtrack to “Sayat Nova”, the 1968 film by Sergei Parajanov – both of which revealed a musician possessed, despite his very young age, of an unsuspected maturity and musical culture.

His third LP – “Sirens” – at times seems to even surpass already high expectations, presenting us with a musician – now fully mature – grappling with his own past, that of his family and of his nation: the Chile he fled as a child together with his family because of Pinochet's bloody dictatorship. “Sirens” is a continuous flow of ideas, autobiographical memories, personal and national history (“Ho trovato ossa rotte sui lati della strada”), feelings and fears (memories of children arrested alongside their parents, who all later became “desaparecidos”), dialogues between father and son (“Abbiamo creato un mostro”), of peoples' struggles crushed in blood and of betrayed victories. The phrase on the cover (“Abbiamo già detto no ma il sì è ovunque”) is emblematic; referring to the 1988 plebiscite in which the Chilean people voted no to Pinochet's reconfirmation, it shows just how fragile and temporary the achievement of freedom can be, since the dangers of a return to dictatorship are everywhere.

Jaar confirms his importance on today's scene for two reasons: starting from personal experiences, he manages to stay relevant and issue a warning to his contemporaries (what happened to him will happen again); and “Sirens”, with its wide range of influences so different from his first two albums (post-punk, new wave, ambient, doo-wop), reveals a musician with an enviable capacity for reinvention.

From the opening “Killing Time” onward, it's clear just how fundamentally different and atypical Nicolas Jaar is compared to his generation; unconventional structures, background noise, rapid flurries of notes that break off into electronic trails replaced by delicate piano notes; and finally, a melancholy, hushed vocal.

“Killing Time” is a timeless track, since – even while describing a personal vision of a past lived in constant danger – it speaks to the shared condition of millions of people, of generations past, present and future; what happened to Jaar's family has already happened countless times, is happening again today, and will happen again in the future. The vocal grows ever more ethereal and whispered, almost insubstantial, in contradiction with the anger and fear that might have instead produced screams and violence. Jaar's denunciation isn't angry, isn't a futile cry into the void; it's a sincere, mature reflection on the human spirit that transcends national and personal boundaries.

“The Governor” has a new wave feel with aspects that are distinctly more European than Chilean or American; the anguished sax at the close manages to be both bizarre and heartrending. “No” reveals Jaar's more Latin side and describes the dialogues between him as a child and his father. The Latin rhythms disappear entirely in “Three Sides Of Nazareth”, the most powerful track on “Sirens”; the obsessive electronics recall post-punk energy or the gloomiest new wave.

The closing “History Lesson” is utterly disorienting; one wonders why the choice to close with a doo-wop track with an electronic backdrop. But the raw, stripped-down lyrics explain everything: Jaar uses the rhythms of light, carefree music to convey messages of bleak resignation, in memory of those who didn't make it, who didn't survive; a certain Frank Zappa, about half a century ago, had done very similar things, in utterly different times and contexts.

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13/10/2016