Nicolas Jaar's second album of 2020, 'Cenizas', has fans going gaga over its dark, unsettling textures
The Chilean-American electronic music producer Nicolas Jaar's second album of 2020, 'Cenizas', has just been released via the artiste's own label Other People. He had previously dropped the album '2017-2019' under his alternate moniker Against All Logic in February 2020, so fans were quite excited to listen to the second release in two months from the talented DJ. 'Cenizas' is Spanish for "ashes", and it seems like this album feels like a culmination of sorts for Jaar.
On March 26, the 30-year-old artiste had posted a note on his site that read, "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... 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."
He also added, "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. 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."
Jaar gave a special shout out to John Coltrane's seminal album 'Crescent', saying "It doesn't rely on anything but a humble faith in melody, rhythm, and freedom." Citing the album as a big inspiration for his 'Cenizas' record, the artiste signed off with, "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."
And fans are loving the new album on social media. "Listening to the new Nicolas Jaar album in darkness. This man is untouchable," said one elated listener.
Another fan enthused, "New Nicolas Jaar album might be his most unsettling work to date (I haven't heard 'Pomegranates') and I'm a big fan of that. Good stuff, 2nd best album of the year so far."
Other listeners agreed, saying "Nicolas Jaar right now, and I must say it's amazing so far." Another admirer marveled, "Nicolas Jaar has dropped two potential albums of the year already, how does he do it?"
It's safe to say that this is one of Jaar's best efforts to date, with many more accolades pouring onto social media like, "Now this is some peak Nicolas Jaar right here."
You can listen to the 'Cenizas' album by clicking here.