Space Is Only Noise is Nicolas Jaar’s first album, and his debut is a tour-de-force of electronic beats and bops and string instruments colliding in an unpredictable, but beautiful, mesh. Perhaps it’s his American-Chilean background, but the music has an indescribable unpredictability to it that’s a welcome fresh air in the electronic genre.
The title references space, and the albums does have a track about that, but it also refers to electronic music itself. As Jaar loops over the tracks, it’s hard not to lose yourself in it as a backing track. Is Jaar’s music only noise? Are electronic beeps and bops only meant to be noise? It feels like Jaar is playfully asking us the question.
In lieu of dance tracks, which he was known for as a college student before this LP dropped, Space Is Only Noise feels like an ambient thumper of a record that defies every possible convention. Jaar doesn’t want you to dance, but he also doesn’t want you to notice what he’s doing either. Because if he can do it quietly, without you really noticing his subversive technique, then he’s won.
It’s easy to put Space Is Only Noise on a loop and muse over it, but I wouldn’t recommend this as a driving record, and it’s certainly not anything you can dance to. Nicolas Jaar’s debut is the sort of record you put on good headphones for and lose yourself in.