It’s been a very busy 2015 for Nicolas Jaar. After setting the indie and electronic music worlds ablaze in 2011 with Space is Only Noise, he’s kept himself busy with a smattering of singles and side projects – including the superb Psychic as one half of Darkside. But this year marked a very distinct return to music-making, one that included two full-length film soundtracks (one of which, Pomegranates, was released for free) and a 3-EP series called Nymphs.
Across 6 songs totaling nearly 48 minutes of music, Jaar makes his case as one of the leading lights of contemporary electronic music. He accomplishes this by first resisting the urge to provide his take on a current trend, only then to push his influences into stark and striking new directions. Blending bleak European futurism and postmodern orchestral scores with old-fashioned minimalism from the schools of Eno and Reich into an entrancing whole, this Brown-educated twenty-something crafts stirring music that challenges my ears afresh with each listen.
And yes, the records are called Nymphs II, Nymphs III, and Nymphs IV. There is no Nymphs I. If this somehow strikes you as a silly affectation that turns you off from approaching these songs, then I just feel sorry for you.
Released on his personal Other People label, the two tracks of Nymphs II – entitled “The Three Sides of Audrey and Why She’s All Alone Now” and “No One is Looking at U” – bristle with bracing spectral grooves, while never bending the knee to the obvious pop sensibilities preferred by contemporaries like James Blake and Jamie xx. Instead, the strong, repetitive pulse of the tunes alternate between disorienting your listening experience and grounding it, depending upon what other sounds your ear choose to pursue. The tracks provide a glorious introduction to where the other four songs head.
Also released on Other People, Nymphs III delivers superb rhythm and pacing through a series of dark and glitchy passages strung together with the utmost care. Calling to mind the inverse of any Flying Lotus project “Revolver,” “Swim,” and “Mistress” crackle with energy, calling you into the dance, but never pausing to dance with you. It’s all about unfulfilled expectations that embrace nuance and shading instead of giving you what you think you want. In fact, “Swim” might be the best material Jaar has ever created, as it’s a sparkling synthesis of Four Tet, Burial, and Caribou into 13 compelling minutes.
And with “Fight,” Nymphs IV brings this song cycle to an eerily beautiful conclusion. Released on R&S Records, this eight-and-a-half-minute cut distills the entire project down to its essence: strong snares, syncopated beats, heavily treated vocals, and creepy ambiance. It’s an exercise in understatement, yet it holds your attention in a velvet glove like few electronic composers can.
While it’s difficult to call a collection of connected EPs one of my favorite projects of the year, I’m consistently and perpetually enamored with the majesty and genius of Nicolas Jaar. Throughout all three Nymphs, he delicately constructs layer upon layer of sounds, sensations, and sensibilities, but his building never topples over, and the listener certainly never feels overwhelmed by a deluge of noise. And honestly – it’s exactly what I want from electronic music these days.
