2017 - 2019

Editors’ Notes New York producer Nicolas Jaar has covered more stylistic ground in his first 10 years as an artist than most do in whole careers. The second album under his Against All Logic umbrella, 2017 - 2019 showcases the noisy, playful side of his sound—not always techno per se, but undoubtedly a slave to the rhythm. “Fantasy” drops a Beyoncé chop into a construction site, while “With an Addict” reframes the long-unsettled question of just how many breakbeats are too many. (A trick question, of course—there's no such thing as too many breakbeats.) Melody and atmosphere prevail—Jaar has a special, almost singular gift for the latter—but boy if they don’t have to fight through the noise. Most exciting is Jaar’s collaboration with punk and No Wave figurehead Lydia Lunch, “If You Can’t Do It Good, Do It Hard,” whose refrain could double as a manifesto for the album if Jaar couldn't obviously do both.