Jan 3

Jan 3 6.

Nicolas Jaar - Sirens

[Other People]

It was January 2011 when Nicolas Jaar last released a solo album, the brilliantly weird Space Is Only Noise, and since then he has been filling his time with many random and unpredictable releases from the excellent Darkside album, to the reimagined soundtrack for the 1969 film The Colour of Pomegranates, to his series of ever-intriguing Nymphs singles. In fact, it had been so long since he’d put out a proper solo album that it seemed he might just be settling into a Burial-like career of randomly released singles and EPs. But then, on September 30th, Jaar surprise dropped a new album, Sirens, and immediately re-affirmed himself as one of the most genius electronic producers in the world. And he brought something else to the table this time: himself, his opinions and his cutting political lyrics.

Sirens starts off very quietly with “Killing Time,” building with a flag flapping in the wind, into what sounds like a glass piano shattering into a rainbow of colours. From there Jaar’s voice comes creeping in for the first time, and he begins to expostulate about the current and historic political problems of his native Chile. Jaar doesn’t remain quiet throughout the album, because the rage he expresses in these lyrics, while working well in the quiet “Killing Time,” become even more venomous when we get to the more booming tracks. “The Governor,” musically, sounds like a pumped-up jam for kicking a rave into overdrive, but lyrically it is brutally oblique, with phrases like “We’ve allowed for a wheel of loss and desire / now there’s no way to put out the fire,” or “Yea we’re all just rolling, the mothers have sunk / all the blood’s hidden in the Governor’s trunk.”

He uses audio clips of himself as a child talking to his father in Spanish, intimating a gentle innocence in “Leaves,” but this then gives way to the harrumphing “No,” the most outspoken and best track on the album. Jaar sings in Spanish throughout “No,” expressing himself in no uncertain terms: (translated) “And it was that day that I saw myself in twenty years / and nothing changes, no nothing changes.” Then comes the main thrust of the song, which graces the album’s cover: “Ya dijimos no / pero el si esta en todo,” (“We already said no / but the yes is in everything”) making an anthemic statement in a language I don’t speak, but will sing along to every time.

Sirens finishes with the beautiful warped doo-wop “History Lesson.” It’s sung and produced like a love/heartbreak song, and perhaps it is, but it could be heartbreak about a partner, or just as likely about Chile: “Chapter one: We fucked up / Chapter two: we did it again, and again, and again, and again.” It’s a poignant final message, but through his mind-expanding musical productions, Jaar gives us hope, revolt and light shining through it all.

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Below you can see my top 50 albums of the year list.