nicolas jaar - mi mujer

Kenalyn Ang 

Mi Mujer is one of Chilean-American artist Nicolas Jaar’s earlier compositions and releases, a part of his EP release Time for Us. Jaar is known for joining the electronic music industry at a very young age, creating chilling, electronic tracks influenced by his personal experiences and Latin-American roots as well as deep house music. He creates with a lingering voice beautiful compositions in both French and Spanish (his mother is half French, while his father is Chilean). Mi Mujer is a reflection of Jaar’s Latin side and unique ability to create soft, smooth and emotionally stirring music; it maintains the steady and patterned timing listeners are familiar with in his other works while highlights Jaar’s alternative approach on electronic music.

The song begins with a quickly intensifying drumming and strumming, creeping out of hiding and instantly provoking excitement and attention from its listener. Jaar immediately establishes a steady rhythm with the occasional incorporation of a quicker drum beat and electric, pinging beats. Not long after, Jaar lurches in with his ringing, resounding voice. Not once is there a breakdown or exaggerated chorus in the nearly seven-minute long track. Instead, Jaar opts for a jazzy horn, introducing a voice, seemingly speaking in a foreign language and calling to his ‘mujer’, accompanied by a more blatant, blaring trumpet. This quickly drops, and the track falls immediately back into that regular, stringy and manufactured opening. 

With Jaar’s echoing, almost menacing voice, the tropical, alert drums, the jazz break, and the unremitting, low bass, one might label Jaar’s work as ‘ethno-house’, but Jaar is completely disgusted with such a label. As he once said in an interview, “It’s colonization all over again”. His music is incredibly personal and opinionated, derived from his upbringing in Chile and as he says, his own DNA. He associates clubs with a sense of sadness as individuals seek out such venues as escapes from reality. Thus his striking, haunting, and wavering but constant beats in Mi Mujer embody the heartbreak club goers must have, while incorporating tunes to help alleviate this same mental and emotional pain.

Sexy, clean, and sleek, Mi Mujer is one of the clearest examples of the unconventional viewpoint Jaar maintains on his work, music, and electronic and dance tracks. In a 2014 interview with LOFTAS TV in Lithuania, Jaar said, “Making music is pretty chaotic”. From Mi Mujer, you would never be able to tell the process was ever hectic.