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.
Nó
Nicolas Jaar Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
De ventana abierta
Mi vecino vino a verme
Estaba lleno de desilusión
Me miró en los ojos
Y me dijo
Ya dijimos no
Lo de adentro y de afuera
Lo de lejos y de cerca
Lo que todos hemos visto
Y lo que ni siquiera dicen
Ya dijimos no
Y fue ese día
Que yo me vi
A mí mismo
En veinte años
Y nada cambia
No nada cambia
Y nada cambia
No nada cambia
Por estos lados
No hay que ver el futuro
Para saber lo que va a pasar
No hay que ver el futuro
Para saber lo que va a pasar
No hay que ver el futuro
Para saber lo que va a pasar
A pasar
A pasar
A pasar
A pasar
A pasar
A pasar
A pasar
Ya dijimos no
Pero el sí está en todo
Lo de adentro y de afuera
Lo de lejos y de cerca
Lo que todos hemos visto
Y lo que ni siquiera dicen
Ya dijimos no
Pero el sí está en todo
Todo lo que hay
No hay que ver el futuro
Para saber lo que va a pasar
No hay que ver el futuro
Para saber lo que va a pasar
No hay que ver el futuro
Para saber lo que va a pasar
A pasar
A pasar
Quédate contra el muro
Ponte contra el muro
Anda para allá y cuenta otro
El que a ti te guste, cuenta un cuento lindo
Había una vez un peque pajarito que estaba volando
Y ahí, había un, un, un
Un señor con una pistola muy grande, así
The lyrics of Nicolas Jaar's song No accuse society of being complacent and unresponsive to the issues that plague it. The song begins with the singer's neighbor coming over to express his frustration and disillusionment with the system. The neighbor exclaims that despite saying "no" to everything, the system continues to be rigged in favor of the powerful. The singer realizes that this same sense of hopelessness and crushing dissatisfaction could be his reality in twenty years. The song warns of impending doom and suggests that lies and corruption are prevalent in every corner of the world. Despite this bleak outlook, the song encourages listeners to keep fighting, even though they know the outcome. Finally, the song ends with a story of a bird flying parallel to a man holding a gigantic gun.
The singer's psychic ennui is told through a simple series of snapshots: a neighbor coming over, a declaration of disillusionment, and an epiphany as to what their life will be like twenty years from now. The song is a subtle reminder of the inaction that plagues many systems, where hopelessness and despair are a common currency. Jaar employs understated minimalism and raw, expressive lyrics to convey the song's message. The descriptions of what's happening are vague, but the emotions behind them are all-encompassing. The song leans into the futility of action in a broken system, but it never stops hoping for the possibility of catharsis.
Line by Line Meaning
Un día
One day
De ventana abierta
With the window open
Mi vecino vino a verme
My neighbor came to see me
Estaba lleno de desilusión
He was full of disillusionment
Me miró en los ojos
He looked me in the eyes
Y me dijo
And he said to me
Ya dijimos no
We already said no
Pero el sí está en todo
But yes is in everything
Lo de adentro y de afuera
What's inside and outside
Lo de lejos y de cerca
What's far and near
Lo que todos hemos visto
What we've all seen
Y lo que ni siquiera dicen
And what they don't even say
Y fue ese día
And it was that day
Que yo me vi
That I saw myself
A mí mismo
In myself
En veinte años
In twenty years
Y nada cambia
And nothing changes
Por estos lados
Around here
No hay que ver el futuro
You don't have to see the future
Para saber lo que va a pasar
To know what will happen
A pasar
It will happen
Quédate contra el muro
Stay against the wall
Ponte contra el muro
Stand against the wall
Anda para allá y cuenta otro
Go over there and tell another
El que a ti te guste, cuenta un cuento lindo
Tell a nice story that you like
Había una vez un peque pajarito que estaba volando
Once there was a little bird that was flying
Y ahí, había un, un, un
And there was, there was, there was
Un señor con una pistola muy grande, así
A man with a very large gun, like this
Writer(s): Alfonso Corcuera, Nicholas Jaar, Sergio Cuevas-nunez
Contributed by Elijah Y. Suggest a correction in the comments below.
@dianaponce5979
Intro]
Un día
De ventana abierta
Mi vecino vino a verme
Estaba lleno de desilusión
Me miró en los ojos
Y me dijo
[Estribillo]
Ya dijimos No, pero el Si está en todo
Lo de adentro y de afuera
Lo de lejos y de cerca
Lo que todos hemos visto
Y lo que ni siquiera dicen
Ya dijimos No
[Verso 1]
Y fue ese día
Que yo me ví
A mi mismo
En veinte años
Y nada cambia
No nada cambia
Y nada cambia
No nada cambia
Por estos lados
Por estos lados
Por otro lados
Por estos lados
[Hook]
No hay que ver el futuro para saber lo que va a pasar
No hay que ver el futuro para saber lo que va a pasar
No hay que ver el futuro para saber lo que va a pasar
A pasar
A pasar
A pasar
A pasar
A pasar
A pasar
A pasar
[Estribillo]
Ya dijimos No, pero el Si está en todo
Lo de adentro y de afuera
Lo de lejos y de cerca
Lo que todos hemos visto
Y lo que ni siquiera dicen
Ya dijimos No, pero el Si está en todo
Todo lo que hay
[Hook]
No hay que ver el futuro para saber lo que va a pasar
No hay que ver el futuro para saber lo que va a pasar
No hay que ver el futuro para saber lo que va a pasar
A pasar
A pasar
[Outro]
Alfredo: Quédate contra el muro. Ponte contra el muro. Anda para allá y cuenta otro. El que a ti te guste, cuenta un cuento lindo.
Nico: Había una vez un pajarito que estaba volando. Y ahí, había un señor con una pistola muy grande e hizo así (imitates sound of gunshot)
@patricioblanche2619
Cable a tierra
“Mi vecino vino a verme / Estaba lleno de desilusión / Me miró en los ojos y me dijo: ya dijimos no / Pero el sí está en todo”. En 2016 Nicolas Jaar, músico electró- nico de prestigio mundial radicado en Nueva York e hijo del Premio Nacional de
51
Se oía venir
Artes Plásticas Alfredo Jaar, cantó en “No” lo que percibía de Chile desde afuera: que entre la voluntad del pueblo que votó “No” en 1988 y la elite que maneja el país con las ideas del “Sí” había un desajuste demasiado doloroso.
Por medio de letras como esa, de la resignificación de sonidos tomados del entorno o del uso de loops y ritmos maquinales que ponen en evidencia la vida urbana alienada, la electrónica chilena ha interpretado de maneras críticas y novedosas los conflictos de la posdictadura. Se organiza en torno a comunida- des que promueven un regreso a lo colectivo, el respeto, la no discriminación, la igualdad de género y un contacto cada vez más estrecho con otras disidencias. Son armas poderosas para enfrentar los tiempos que corren. Los circuitos y co- nexiones ya existen.
“Se oía venir”: Lanzan libro gratuito de la música chilena que advirtió el estallido social 2019
https://www.cuadernoypauta.cl/inicio/
@felipemartinez7899
Si interpretas esta canción desde un enfoque vital y no político. Si el "No" es miedo, rechazo, represión y negación y el "Sí" es aceptación, confianza y esperanza, me alegro, por ti y por mi.
@mariolugo6284
Desconocía el contexto de la canción y que hacía referencia a la tensión política que se vivió en Chile en los 80s, cuando me enteré y escuché de nuevo la canción, se me pusó la piel de gallina... Saludos desde México a mis hermanos chilenos
I didn't know the context of the song and that it made reference to the political tension that was experienced in Chile on the earlys 80s, when i realized it, i listen once again to the song, i got goosebumps... Greetings from Mexico to my Chilean brothers
@DaniUndress
Esta canción toma más fuerza ahora. Estamos ad portas de un plebiscito para cambiar la Constitución heredada por la dictadura de Pinochet por una nueva hecha en democracia. Ahora es Apruebo = NO vs Rechazo = SÍ. El 4 de septiembre de 2022, será otro de esos días históricos.
@PamelaNoemiM
Nunca me tomé el tiempo de escucharla completa, pero, dios, que belleza.
@EdgarVillagme
Eso creo yo, es una belleza, pero me resulta extraña la letra!
@donatello311
2021 still loving this sound, on repeat for 2 days now <3
@freshyeska9875
Chingonsisima la rola!
Your music is an experience Nico, feeling very grateful for what you do.
@EdgarVillagme
Yes it is, chingonsisima
@miafyodorov5794
i love your work ! you are my favorite artist.
@sgbx7260
His music Will Always have a special place in my Heart .. so emotional !! Pure Feelings Saw him at Olympia, Paris and it changed my life