Nicolas Jaar - Pomegranates (2LP) [Other People]

Format: 2x12" 180 gram. 

It's been 10 years since Pomegranates —Nicolas Jaar’s unofficial/alternate soundtrack to Sergei Parajanov’s 1969 film The Color of Pomegranates— was first released, and to mark this occasion we are re-releasing the album on vinyl, as the first run (a collaboration with Mana Records) has long been sold out.

More expansive and slower developing than some of his other albums, Pomegranates often runs parallel with the cinematic epic it sources from, developing ideas over vast spans of time and traversing dusky landscapes, assembling elements and atmospheres from Armenia's aesthetic and folkloric landscapes. Jaar's identity is sensed within this framework, integrating his Palestinian and Chilean heritage while attempting to construct an expansive musical architecture that frames as much of life’s chaos and breadth as possible; utilizing a language that investigates the movement and fluctuation of his own artistic career and character, similarly to the film's portrayal of the young poet Sayat-Nova’s growth.

At times, Pomegranates feels deeply intimate, as if exploring a friend’s music archive and discovering the common accent and currency that inhabits each of these tracks. Much of Jaar’s most graceful and poignant melodic work is housed here, with a strength that lies in its simplicity and its willingness to speak to the listener’s heart, rather than their mind.

In the text document included with the album’s first version, freely distributed in 2015, Jaar writes that the record was conceived during a moment of change, and that the pomegranate became an icon announcing that passage of time. The physical release of Pomegranates closes one door while opening another, fulfilling promises and marking a significant point in the career of a tirelessly self-reinventing artist, with a document that illustrates a common language of lyricism, freedom, and emotional resonance that connects his multiple paths and projects.