Cenizas (Limited CD/Book)

Nicolás Jaar recorded the Cenizas LP between 2017 and 2019, but on the surface this record is rather more reserved than the album entitled 2017-2019 which Jaar released under his Against All Logic alias. Whereas the AAL music tended towards abrasive techno, Cenizas is a more cautious and somewhat serious-sounding affair.
Sonically the album brings together influences from contemporary classical music, moody electronics, experimental balladry, homely industrial music and much else besides. The textures here are constructed with great care, and beats take a backseat for much of Cenizas. When rhythms do appear they are either warped in a manner reminiscent of Arca's early work ('Menysid', 'Mud') or provide gently skittering pulses at the edges of low-lit avant-songs that recall James Blake (closing cut 'Faith Made Of Silk').

However, though this LP may never deliver the driving drums of an Against All Logic production, there is a shared sense of rupture and paranoia between Cenizas and Jaar's alter-ego which distinguishes this album from his earlier eponymous releases such as Space Is Only Noise. Whereas Jaar used to allow the listener to sink into his evocative productions, here found sounds, jagged pieces of instrumentation and reverb-drenched voices frequently cut through the atmosphere. For instance, the drones of 'Gocce' are increasingly disrupted by assertive harp runs and percussive hits as the track goes on. These choices heighten the Arca comparisons as well as bringing the likes of Rabit, This Heat and The Haxan Cloak to mind

Nicolás Jaar is a Chilean sound maker born in 1990. He is known in the club world for his various dance 12" EPs and remixes he put out from 2008 to 2011. Since his first full length (Space Is Only Noise, 2011), he has embarked in multiple divergent path. For the last seven years, he has released a large volume of recordings through his label Other People. In 2015, Nicolás scored Dheepan by director Jacques Audiard (winner of the Palme d'Or at Cannes 2015). In 2016, Jaar launched The Network, a web of 111 fictional radio stations done in collaboration with artists Jena Myung and Maziyar Pahlevan. In 2017, The Network became a book, published by Printed Matter in NY. In the spring of 2019, Jaar was commissioned for a nine-hour improvisation in the Oude Kerk Church in Amsterdam which he performed alongside two organists and a dozen surround speakers pointed at the ceiling of the church. Nicolás is currently curating a residency for sound artists in the West Bank that takes place in a 130 year-old converted food storage shack in Bethlehem (within the Dar Yusuf Nasri Jacir For Art And Research دار يوسف نصري جاسر للفن و للبحث.) Residents so far include composer Sebastian Jatz Rawicz and researcher and artist Rolando Hernández. In the fall of 2019, he presented Incomprehensible Sun, a sound and light installation in a 200-meter-long ex-military shooting range in Zaandam (The Netherlands) and Retaining The Energy, But Losing The Image alongside artist Vincent De Belleval which consisted of ten large rotating parabolic reflectors that capture and emit hyper-focalized surround sound. For the first Sharjah Architecture Triennale (curated by Adrian Lahoud in 2019). Nicolás performed a piece for 16 buried speakers in the desert near the Mleiha Archaeological Centre. Nicolás has collaborated with Lydia Ourahmane, FKA Twigs, and Patrick Higgins under the name AEAEA.