Aeaea, Nicolas Jaar, and Patrick Higgins

Although singer, producer and multi-instrumentalist Nicolas Jaar only really broke out in 2011, the 23-year-old had been making waves on the underground electronic music scene for a while with a series of inventive deep house crossover productions. He hit the big time when he released the amazing Space Is Only Noise album in 2011, which was a mesmerising collection of progressive electronic music often complimented with his peculiar but lovely vocals.
His live shows tend to be collaborative affairs. At Worldwide Festival 2012 in France he was joined by guitarist Dave Harrington, who is one half of Darkside alongside Jaar, and a saxophonist, while Jaar worked his magic on various electronic equipment and keyboards. They were absolutely mind-blowing, fleshing out Jarr’s downtempo songs like ‘Space Is Only Noise If You Can See’ into psychedelic, post-electronica jams.
I also got to see him when he performed at the Barbican in London in 2013, backed by incredible, heady visuals from The Joshua Light Show. Here he performed the first half of his show solo, utilising various instruments (including a grand piano) alongside his equipment to create a journey of ambient audio landscapes, somewhere between post-rock and melodic techno. Harrington then joined him to run through some of their Darkside material, which brought a psychedelic rock vibe, with lots of guitar distortion. ‘Too Many Kids Finding Rain In The Dust’ was the highlight, as it captured everything that Nicolas Jaar is about in a live environment: his brooding electronica, post-rock ambitions and his haunting baritone-heavy vocals.