American/Chilean musician Nicolas Jaar has given his fans a thanksgiving* gift in the form of a new track titled, ‘The Ego’ . The song was released for free download overnight through the label Clown and Sunset , which he founded at 21 years old. Within its short lifetime the new piece has cranked up over 60,000 hits, proving the rising affection for his obscure juggling of genres – once labeled by Pitchfork as “ electro-acoustic downtempo future-jazz “.
For Jaar fans, it offers a lot of what we love about his (self-coined) ”blue-wave” style of electronica which is always weird, unexpected and beautiful. Yet ‘The Ego’ demonstrates further development of melody and structure from the songs we heard on his debut album, ‘ Space Is Only Noise’ (January 2011). Featured throughout ‘The Ego’ is a monologue titled ‘ Theater Roosevelt’ or ‘ Teddy’s Ghost ‘. The twisted vocals are taken from election soundbites which have been tweaked and manipulated in to a fun Jamaican accent.
At first the vocals create this sharp contrast to the smooth silky synth line, but in true Jaar form, it is slowly moulded around the underbelly of the track, becoming as much of a percussive instrument as every other jagged snap, crackle and pop. You can’t help but move your body to its slow, dub bounce. From here, each element of the song interplays to become this one coherent sound that is smooth, rhythmic and hypnotic.
The song ends way too quickly and leaves the listener hungry for more. All up, a killer tune that’s sure to find it’s way in to next weeks playlist .
* Thanks Giving : that US holiday that’s always in movies, yet still don’t really understand.REVIEW BY TOM PITNEY
WORDS BY Tom Pitney
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