Singer, songwriter and author Ali Sethi had been entranced by Jaar’s music long before they began collaborating. He’d absorbed the sounds over a number of years, listening casually and taking in their subtleties in bars and rooftop parties across Lahore and London. “It felt familiar to me, that sense of adventure you have when you hear his music, like a tale that teases you and plays with your expectations as it unfolds,” says Sethi. “In that sense it resembled the leisurely improvised ghazals and qawwalis I grew up hearing in Pakistan.”

In a new series of recordings, Rewire unearths projects from previous editions of the festival, often focusing on commissioned works and special collaborations. For the first release of this series, we highlight acclaimed Chilean-American artist Nicolás Jaar and his second performance at Rewire 2019. Under the name Nicolás Jaar & Group, an ensemble of musicians performed a commissioned work by Jaar for piano, saxophone, duduk, cello, electronics and percussion instruments that were custom-built for the performance.

The last experience that this writer had of Nicolas Jaar’s glitchy soundscapes was through his 2011 debut album Space Is Only Noise. Nine years and five discs on, as well as other releases under the Against All Logic alias, not much has changed. However, Jaar’s work remains distinctly strange yet compelling on Telas and rarely lurches into formless noodling.