Telas

About

As a newcomer to the electronic scene, Nicolas Jaar, then still a college student, made his mark by slowing minimal techno into a form both woozy and sensuous. Since then, his music has become steadily hazier and less rhythmic, exploring a rich mixture of ambient atmospheres and electro-acoustic textures. <i>Telas</i> is the Chilean American musician’s second album of 2020, following <i>Cenizas</i>, and it might be his gauziest record yet. The title translates as “Veils,” and the music, created to accompany visual works by the artist Somnath Bhatt, is meant to encapsulate a world where, according to Jaar, “no matter—whether existing in thought, physical form, or other—has a solid or unmovable origin.” The results are fittingly fluid: Incorporating sounds from cellist Milena Punzi, vocalist Susanna Gonzo, and instrument makers Anna Ippolito and Marzio Zorio, <i>Telas</i> flutters like bedsheets in the breeze. Divided into four long tracks, the hour-long album drifts across brushed percussion, free-jazz reeds, and an ever-shifting expanse of luminous, synthetic sounds. There are echoes of Japanese ambient, German cosmic music, and turn-of-the-millennium microsound, but mostly <i>Telas</i> is a world of its own—a multidimensional space so amorphous that it never sounds the same way twice.

via Apple Music