The promo video made for Sunset of a Clown Volume II is the opening shot to a Godard film soundtracked by Nicolas Jaar's "Marquises." It's either the height of pretension, or pretty brilliant. That I can't work out which probably makes it the latter. Music that actually puts you in a position where you're required to think about how it makes you feel is often among the finest. "Marquises" and the tracks that surround it on this second release from Jaar's imprint aren't necessarily the greatest things in the world, but each of them occupy a space that is hard to quantify—and that's exactly the point.
Nikita Quasim's "Framboises" is bustling with microsound while a piano plays quickly over top in a superior mood piece, while Jaar's biting of French folkie is a nice twist on the prevailing trend towards South American protest songs. (He overlays it with a lazy breakbeat rather than a pounding house beat too, which seems to fulfill his stated goal of "taking the beats even slower.") Soul Keita, meanwhile, brings the only track that veers close enough to a dance floor. It builds and it builds, as an acoustic guitar and kick drum while away as a hazy sample gradually comes into view. Typically, the climax isn't the sort of thing that will have Amnesia crowds in ecstasy, but when you're dealing with music as intimate as this, you tend to want to have it for yourself anyway.
Published /
Fri, 30 Oct 2009
Tracklist: Various Artists - Sunset Of A Clown Volume II
01. Nikita Quasim - Framboises
02. Nicolas Jaar - Marquises
03. Soul Keita - Monjitas | 
