Nicolas Jaar: "The Three Sides of Audrey and Why She’s All Alone Now"

Front page photo by Tim Jones

Listen to the seven-and-a-half-minute A-side to Nico Jaar‘s first solo 12″ in four years and consider, for a moment, that you are dead. Well, not dead dead. Near death. Somewhere in that liminal state between life and what is next. Sure, there was that time you accidentally ran over a dog, but that doesn’t mean you deserve eternal damnation, right? You hear a hum in the distance—angels, or ghosts. Memories fly by like so many unread emails. There are flickers of static in the whiteness. Then a scream erupts and a trap door opens and you drop through.

Which is to say: Nicolas Jaar is very good at limbo. Is this a song, or a suite, or a soundtrack, or just a trip to the outer reaches of the human psyche? Does it take place in a sick future, or a roiling past, or a shaky present? How do these glitches sound so much like breathing; how does this breathing sound so much like a glitch? As we wait for the machines to catch up with us, Jaar offers sounds of startling wonder, sounds that tremble before evaporating and coming back as thunder. In his world, in-between is its own destination, and the only destination.

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