Music Man: Nicolas Jaar

This past winter break, while most college seniors were sleeping off hangovers, Nicolas Jaar, a comparative-lit student at Brown who makes lush, meditative electronic music, played 30 gigs—from Paris to Playa del Carmen—culminating in a five-hour improvised set at MoMA PS1 in New York. A bit of an overachiever, Jaar also runs his own record label, Clown & Sunset, and has designed the Prism, a sleek, enigmatic audio device (inset) that plays his latest compilation, Don’t Break My Love. Hearing the songs is as easy—or complicated—as plugging in headphones and figuring out which unmarked button does what. And while Billboard suggested Prism—essentially a new way of packaging, distributing, and protecting work—“could potentially change the way people consume music,” Jaar explains that his intention wasn’t to revolutionize the industry. “I simply wanted to create a beautiful space for my music to live in.” ($40, csa.fm)

Photo: myqua.com