Nicolas Jaar: Space is only Noise (Circus Company)

For a producer of so-called dance music, 20 year old NY boy Jaar has created an album where the dancing is much more in your head that on your feet. Everything is slowed right down and the slow-mo house beats are peppered with found sounds, dripping water, voices, strings, (often fractured, sometimes vocodered) vocals and, more often than not, beautifully played minimalist piano. I love the weirdly unexpected journey that this album takes you on - whereby tracks start as one thing and then end up as another thing altogether, and this unexpected journey is repeated every single time that you listen to it - as there is so much going on. I know nothing of Jaar's other releases, nor his remixes, and so i don't know if this is indicative of the rest of his oeuvre but i really appreciate the time and effort that has gone into making this an album of great imagination and of unexpected delights. Since i got this the album has been recalled due to an uncleared sample on 'I got a' - that means that future editions will not feature the track, but this is no great loss as said track is not half as essential as most of the other tracks.