At 17, he debuted with "The Student EP" on Wolf + Lamb Music, with remixes by Seth Troxler and Kasper. At 18 he continued producing and played live at Club der Visionäre and Arena in Berlin, at the Marcy in Brooklyn and at Mutek in Mexico City, alongside Deadbeat, Flying Lotus and Guillaume & the Coutu Dumonts, amongst others. At 19 he studied at Brown University in Rhode Island. Nico has many releases coming up, including some on Circus Company, Wolf + Lamb (with remixes by Ryan Crosson) and on his own label, Clown and Sunset, of which he is the owner and founder.
Jaar then spent four years in underground dance circles, crafting rough, hip hop influenced house music (examples include "Love you gotta lose again", "Angles"). Initially made as jokes to make his mother laugh and dance, Jaar made two songs where he sang in his native Spanish ("Mi Mujer" and "El Bandido"). Jaar did not intend for them to come out. He changed his mind in 2010, as he felt the songs were his way of answering to what he deemed as exploitative sampling of Latin American culture by white European DJs.
He released his debut album, Space Is Only Noise, in January 2011 to critical acclaim, receiving a score of 8.4 and the title of Best New Music from Pitchfork [5] and four stars from the Guardian.[6] It was ranked #1 album of the year by Resident Advisor, Mixmag, and Crack Mag.
Jaar toured the album for three years with guitarist Dave Harrington (later of Darkside) and keyboardist Will Epstein. Jaar was voted # 1 Live Act on Resident Advisor for the 3 years he toured the record.[7]
In 2012, he debuted a live concept called From Scratch, where, in front of a live audience, he samples records he bought that day. The first iteration happened in Queens, NY at MOMA PS1; it was a 5-hour concert with collaborator Will Epstein, videographer Ryan Staake, dancer Lizzie Feidelson and singer Sasha Spielberg. He has also performed From Scratch at the Museum of Modern Art in Denver, Colorado and Montreal.
On May 18, 2012 Nicolas Jaar made his BBC Radio 1 Essential Mix' debut,[8] which was voted Radio 1's Essential Mix Of The Year of 2012.[9]
On October 4, 2013, the debut album from Darkside, Jaar's project with longtime collaborator Dave Harrington, was released to critical acclaim and a 9.0 score on Pitchfork.[10] The band toured the record for the entirety of 2014.[11]
In February 2015, Jaar released a largely ambient record entitled Pomegranates, which he intended as an alternate soundtrack to The Color of Pomegranates.[12][13]
Later that year, Jaar scored the soundtrack to Dheepan, a thriller by French filmmaker Jacques Audiard about a family of Sri Lankan refugees living in the suburbs of Paris. It was the winner of the Palme d'Or at Cannes 2015.[2]
In 2019, Jaar assembled a group of 12 researchers (Shock Forest Group) in order to explore the history and future of a military complex-turned art institution in the Netherlands. The resulting exhibition, entitled "No Camouflage' (het Hem, 2019) uncovered the myriad layers of accumulated colonial, ecological and institutional violence that interlink on the site through archival media findings, data gathering, performances and sound installations.
Jaar is part of the team at Dar Yusuf Nasri Jacir for Art and Research, a grass-roots independent artist–run initiative founded in 2014 located in Bethlehem, Palestine. Jaar transformed Dar Jacir’s food shack into a sound studio where he has held sound workshops with kids from Aida and Dheisheh refugee camps. These sound workshops introduced the children to the practice of electronic music creation, experimenting with instruments and recording techniques available in the new studio. A residency program for international artists has been curated by Jaar since 2019, with Sebastián Jatz Rawicz (Chile) and Rolando Hernández (Mexico) as guests so far. Jaar has also held workshops at RCA Architecture Program (2021), Werkplaats Typografie, NL (2019, alongside research group SFG), 4x4 festival (Chiapas), Sonar Barcelona (2012) and Berklee College of Music, US (2015).
From 2017-2019, Jaar worked as producer / writer with FKA Twigs on her lauded album 'Magdalene'. He has recently collaborated with artist Somnath Bhatt (2018-2020), artist/designer/coder Abeera Kamran (2020-2021), composer Patrick Higgins (2019-Ongoing), artist Lydia Ourahmane (2018), installation artist Vincent De Belleval (2016-Ongoing), saxophone player Mette Henriette (2014-Ongoing) and fado singer Carminho (2011) among others. As a producer, he's been comissioned remixes by Brian Eno (2013), Cat Power (2012), Florence + The Machine (2015) and more. His song "Killing Time" was sampled on "Call Out My Name", a 2018 song by The Weeknd. He is also a current member of performance ensemble ¡miércoles! alongside dancer and choreographer Stéphanie Janaina, and part of the band DARKSIDE alongside multi-instrumentalist Dave Harrington.
Jaar is the owner and founder of the New York-based imprint Other People. Notable releases include works by Lydia Lunch, DJ Slugo, William Basinski, Valentin Stip, VTGNIKE, Lucretia Dalt and 12z. Although the label predominantly releases vinyl, it also offers a membership where fans can download new releases and gain access to the entire Other People archive for $4 a month. Other People only publishes creator-owned content and splits all profits made from records sales 50/50 with artists.
Mi Mujer
Nicolas Jaar Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
Si has visto a mi mujer
Has visto mi mujer
Por la calle
Y allá
Dónde está mi mujer
En la calle
Por acá
Por allá
Por allá y por allá
Has visto mi mujer
En la calle
En el club
En la disco
Has visto a mi mujer
Oye dime si tu sabes
Si me has visto mi mujer
Pelo corto
En la orilla
Un clavodil
Oye tu me hablas
Me hablas de sexo
De amor
Que ninguno
No sabe comprender
The lyrics of Nicolas Jaar's "Mi Mujer" bring forth a sense of longing and desperation on the part of the singer. The song starts with him asking if anyone has seen his woman ("Dime si tu sabes, si has visto a mi mujer"), making it clear that she is missing and he needs her back. He then repeats the phrase "has visto a mi mujer" (have you seen my woman) multiple times while mentioning places where she might be found- on the street, in a club, or in a disco. The repetition of these lines underscores the urgency of the singer's plea.
The second stanza of the song has the singer becoming more emotional and frustrated, as he implores his listener to tell him if they have indeed seen his woman- "oye dime si tu sabes, si me has visto mi mujer." He then offers a description of her physical features- "pelo corto en la orilla un clavodil" (short hair on the edge, a clavodil) in an effort to help the listener identify her. The final lines of this stanza have the singer talking about love and sex, seeming to imply that his love is genuine and deep, and no one else can feel what he does for her.
"Mi Mujer" is a song that speaks to the fragility of love and how we can be lost without the presence of the ones we love. The singer's plaintive plea and the repetition of the song's central line- "has visto a mi mujer" tug at our heartstrings and make us feel the depth of his sorrow.
Line by Line Meaning
Dime si tu sabes
Can you tell me
Si has visto a mi mujer
If you have seen my woman
Has visto mi mujer
Have you seen my woman
Por la calle
On the street
Y allá
And there
Dónde está mi mujer
Where is my woman
En la calle
On the street
Por acá
Around here
Por allá
Over there
Por allá y por allá
Here and there
Has visto mi mujer
Have you seen my woman
En la calle
On the street
En el club
In the club
En la disco
In the disco
Has visto a mi mujer
Have you seen my woman
Oye dime si tu sabes
Hey, can you tell me
Si me has visto mi mujer
If you have seen my woman
Pelo corto
Short hair
En la orilla
On the shore
Un clavodil
A clove
Oye tu me hablas
Hey you, you're talking to me
Me hablas de sexo
You're talking to me about sex
De amor
About love
Que ninguno
That nobody
No sabe comprender
Knows how to understand
Lyrics © BEGGARS MUSIC, LTD.
Written by: NICOLAS ALFREDO JAAR
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind