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I want to share some thoughts about Cenizas before its release tomorrow.
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The music comes from a desire to feel everything -- a few years ago, I stopped drinking alcohol, smoking, consuming caffeine, eating animals, etc., and, for a period of time, I also quarantined myself alone somewhere on the other side of the world to be able to work on music for months on end. I didn’t want to keep feeding the system. Its hunger, its past. I didn’t want to work from ambition. Where I would work to impress first, and love second. I wanted presence first. Love first. I thought that if I had this privilege and this luck, to be able to talk to people through sound, then I better work on myself &get rid of negative shards within me. I didn't want to unwittingly throw them back into the world.
Of course, this didn't happen. (Sorry..!) The more I tried to get away from negativity, the more it kept piling up in a dark room, but as shards of sound. A lot of these shards can be heard in the last Against All Logic album, and countless things you'll never hear (thank goodness!). It made no sense to me that the more I tried to escape negativity, the more it could surface in the creative process. But the shards kept piling up and I had to accept the fact that the darkness that I was trying to get away from would always rear its head. Regardless of what I abstained from. And even more so when trying to orient myself towards the positive. Hopefully Cenizas only shows darkness so as to show a path out of it. I want this music to heal and help in thinking through difficult questions about one’s self, and one’s relationship to the state of things. We are living in a time of complete transformation, a metamorphosis— and the transformations are happening within as well. There is potential for great healing and great destruction.
In a way, the music goes 'both directions at once', to quote the John Coltrane record.
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Speaking of Coltrane, his record Crescent was a guiding light and reference in the beginning of this new period. What is so special about Crescent is that it is quietly filled with the spirit of metamorphosis. Crescent is wet and dry at the same time: it's in the middle of a phase transition. It is transcendent in its subtlety -- in its humility. This is the feeling I aspire to the most -- it is the work that inspires me the most. It doesn't shout from the top of a mountain or wallow in its subjectivity. It doesn't rely on anything but a humble faith in melody, rhythm and freedom.
Freedom. Faith in freedom. Personal freedom and freedom for others. I cannot be free if my sister, my brother, my neighbor, and my mother is not free. Politics is the spiritual manifestation of society. It is the juggling of freedoms. So is music. We are what we listen to, who we listen to and who we listen with.
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Tune in at 9pm GMT here : https://www.twitch.tv/againsta111ogic
Cenizas is comprised of 13 songs and can be pre-ordered here: https://nicolasjaar.bandcamp.com/
listen here: http://open.spotify.com/album/75vFTgDgdfVhbniLoyCNKh
RTE is a performance by Vincent de Belleval and Nicolás Jaar based around 10 rotating parabolic reflectors that capture and emit sound and light. The reflectors scan a building’s interior volume, creating an ever-changing ecosystem of reflections and feedback chains. Due to their parabolic shape, the reflectors emit focalized transitory sound fields, encouraging an active and ambulatory listening. It was developed with Pantxo Bertin & Adam Paikowsky. https://urvakan.com/
First aired on NTS Radio on January 27 2020, you can find it archived here.
Más de 4 mil personas asistieron al concierto cultural que celebró los 10 años del Museo de la Memoria y los Derechos Humanos. El evento recorrió la historia de la institución durante estos diez años, artistas como Los Coros Ciudadanos, Inti-Illimani junto a Quilapayún, Grupo Congreso, Ases Falsos, Nicolás Jaar, Manuel García, Javiera Parra, Zaturno, Joe Vasconcellos, y Moral Distraída invitaron al público a reflexionar sobre la memoria, la migración, los pueblos indígenas, la diversidad y los derechos humanos a través de sus canciones. https://ww3.museodelamemoria.cl/
Recording starts at the 1h 18min mark https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m000bgvb AEAEA is Nicolás' duo with composer Patrick Higgins
Nicolás will be performing at the first Sharjah Architecture Triennale. The 1h 15 minute piece will consist of 16 speakers buried underground and placed in a circle around the audience in the archeological site of Mleiha Fort. More info: https://www.sharjaharchitecture.org/pages/featured/-1
This is a collaboration between Vincent de Belleval & Nicolás Jaar (with help from Pantxo Bertin) and it consists of 10 large rotating reflectors. The parabolas create an ever-changing environment of interlinked reflections and feedback chains. The title alludes to light and sound diffusion, signifying how the energy of the sound and light is kept in its reflections but not in its source. Due to their parabolic shape, the reflectors can also focalize sound, creating hallucinatory surround fields.
Nicolás worked on 7 of the album's songs alongside Twigs. The album comes out November 8th.
The light + sound piece takes over the entire 200 meter long tunnel in the basement of the former ammunitions factory. 'Incomprehensible Sun' will be on view in Zaandam from September 18th until December 21st. Tickets here: https://hethem.nl/en/Tickets
Nicolás Jaar and Patrick Higgins will play at the opening concert of this year's Le Guess Who festival in Utrecht under the name AEAEA. (https://leguesswho.nl/)
For the first time, Dave Harrington, Will Epstein, Nicolás Jaar and Tlacael Esparza bring the Bladerunner project to Europe for 8 intimate shows in the basement of het HEM in Zaandam. Starts Thursday the 10th of October. more info : https://hethem.nl/en/
Nicolás will be working with the Shock Forest Group, an ensemble of 12 researchers from various different fields, for the next three months. They will be investigating the sounds, histories and stories in and around Hembrug, an ex-military terrain in the north of Amsterdam. A log of the operation can be found here.
From August 5th-11th Rolando Hernandez will be staying and working at the Dar Jacir Studio in Bethlehem. He is Nicolás' second guest at his new residency program in the West Bank.
More info at The Wire
For Dar Jacir's inaugural exhibition on the 21st of June, Nicolás installed a 6 meter water pipe from Hebron that broadcasts the resonant frequency of the Jacir Studio mixed with the natural droning of the pipe. This frequency was mixed with the live amplification of the naturally occurring droning of the pipe. The piece is entitled "Echorot". Other artists in the exhibit include Ayed Arafah, Duncan Campbell, Sam Durant, Jumana Manna, Tai Pomara, Mohammed Saleh and Vivien Sansour.
The first resident of the new Dar Jacir Studio is chilean sound artist and composer Sebastian Jatz Rawicz. From the press release: When Sebastián first entered the small square building made of stones in Dar Jacir´s garden, he perceived it as a sacred structure, a hiding place from which listening would be possible without being seen. A protected place for silence and contemplation. A place of geographical convergence, where the wind rises perfectly towards the four walls. In order to bring his experience back to Santiago, Sebastián decided to create a narrative of the Sound Studio building, tracing its coordinates through sounds and voice recordings. An archive of the work created in the studio is in the works via Other People.
For his residency at the Dar Yusuf Nasri Jacir for Art and Research, Nicolás transformed Dar Jacir’s storage space into a sound studio for the creation of site specific sound pieces. Throughout his two weeks in the space, Nicolás met with musicians from Bethlehem, Ramallah and Haifa and also had sound workshops with kids from Aida and Dheisheh refugee camps. These sound workshops introduced children to the practice of music and sound´s creation, experimenting with instruments and tools available in the new studio. A residency program for international artists will be curated by Nicolás for 2019-2020.
¡miércoles! will be performing at CA2M in Madrid for their Picnic Sessions.
¡miércoles! the collaboration between Nicolás and choreographer, artist and dancer Stéphanie Janaina will be performing at Sarāb festival in Wadi Rum on June 8th
Nicolás will be improvising for 9 hours at the Oude Kerk Church in Amsterdam on Sunday May 12th. A dozen+ surround speakers + two organs will be in use. (first function: 6am-9am, second function: 4pm-7pm, third function: 10pm-1am)
The main theme from 'Voula' a piece commissioned by the Oude Kerk church in Amsterdam will be playing every hour at the bell tower carillon for the next 5 months.
Nicolás will be the artist in residency at the Dar Yusuf Nasri Jacir for Art and Research (دار يوسف نصري جاسر للفن و للبحث) from the 22nd of April to the 5th of May 2019.
¡Miércoles! will be performing in Rome on October 5th 2019 for Roma Europa Festival.
Against All Logic live for the first time and Nicolás Jaar & Group performing in Tasmania in June.
On March 26, Nicolás will be joined by Norwegian saxophone player Mette Henriette (ECM), Italian percussionist Valentina Magaletti – who will be playing new instruments created by Turin based artists Anna Ippolito and Marzio Zorio – Hamlet Nazaretyan and Ivane Mkirtichyan, who will be playing duduk and Johan Lindvall who will round out the ensemble on piano. (https://clubtoclub.it/en/other-people-night/)
Nicolás will DJ at Elysia in Basel on March 28. He will be joined by Patrick Higgins, VTGNIKE and Ancient Astronaut. http://elysia.ch/
6 hour NTS mix archived here, available for download
All of the Nymphs EPs from 2011-2015 collected in one triple vinyl. https://nicolasjaar.bandcamp.com/album/nymphs-triple-lp-pre-order
Tremlett presents Nicolás Jaar’s multi-channel radio network as an installation across the rooms of a five floor medieval tower in Spoleto: http://www.mahler-lewitt.org/events/public-program-artists-books-program-2018
Nicolás will be performing new works at Rewire Festival in The Hague.
Nicolás will be performing a live audio visual piece at Unsound Adelaide on December 14th.
more info here
¡miércoles! Is a live project by dancer Stéphanie Janaina and Nicolás. The premiere, entitled "Fiesta desde el Vacío" will take place on November 21st 2018 in San Cristobal, Chiapas (Mexico) for the contemporary dance festival 4 x 4.
Nicolás will be doing a residency at the Oude Kerk from the 15 to the 21st of October. He will be working on a piece for two organs and electronics which will be premiered in the Spring 2019, alongside a piece by Philip Glass. The residency will be closed to the public. more info : https://oudekerk.nl/
Farah Nayeri will conduct a live interview with Nicolás for Unfinished, in Bucharest (Sep 27-30)
Pomegranates, Nicolás' ambient 2015 record is out now on vinyl through specialized shops.
Artist Lydia Ourahmane and Nicolás present "Music for Two Seas" an underwater sound work in the coast of Stromboli
Video of Nicolás performing 'Three Sides of Nazareth' Live in Ramallah on September 30th 2017
Nicolás will be performing at the Kitchen alongside Bush Tetras, James Chance, JG Thirlwell & ensemble, Veronica Vasicka, and Lydia Lunch on May 16, 2018.
Nicolás is no longer represented by WME, Windish, Geist or We Are Free. For all further requests, please email inquiry@nicolasjaar.net