The resulting music is slow and contemplative, and defined by the kind of sound-play which makes Jaar special.
On Cenizas, Nicolas Jaar unveils a static but emotional masterpiece, an album that doesn't challenge the listener as much as it invites them into his alien, meditative, astonishing world.
As an album, Cenizas wanders, floats, drifts. Jaar’s work has always been experimental, but this record is without a doubt his most “challenging,” rife with exercises in drone, ambient, and noise, often at the same time.
The Chilean American producer’s latest album is his most probing and existential, taking influences from all over his career and placing them into grim atmospheres that slip in and out of reality.
Nicolas Jaar's second album of 2020 is an evocative set of electroacoustic vignettes.
Cenzias creates the precious illusion of space and motion.
Though there are no hooks nor beats to catch listeners in his web of brilliance, Cenizas’ sonic allure and complete diversion into sounds rarely explored makes it Jaar’s most compelling project yet.
Spiritual lockdown.
Impenetrable phoenix of electronic elegance, Nicolás Jaar is reborn from his ashes through a bewitching album, an exploration without limits, revealing an ever deeper and dreamlike universe. While the quarantine forces us to remain alone to reflect, to question ourselves, Jaar offers us a dark soundscape more introspective than ever.
This is only a farewell. Many have danced to his hit "Mi Mujer" or vibrated to his Boiler Room, but Nicolás Jaar's ... read more
I'm not sure if this will hold up to multiple listens like something more immediate might, but writing this review now (a couple've days after I've first heard it) I love this a lot.
Edit 1: It's now a week after first hearing this and I love it even more.
Edit 2: This is a wonderful album.
Edit 3: After half a year of this being out, it has SLIGHTLY fallen out of my top 10's.
All 13 tracks reviewed/ poorly described:
Vanish (86) is an ethereal opener informing the listener of the darkness to ... read more
extremely strange even for a nicholas jaar project. the subtlety of the sounds gives the songs a glass-like fragility that gives me the image of a wire statue when i hear it. though a beautiful frame it may be, it's brittle and extremely fragile. "Mud" is superb.
#38 | / | Crack Magazine |
#50 | / | PopMatters |
#58 | / | Rough Trade |