NIN3S is how Catalan progressive house DJ and producer Uner is recasting himself as he moves to explore a nuanced and intelligent jazz palette, and under which name he’s signed for London’s cool Dorado Records, home at various points to Brooklyn Funk Essentials, Jhelisa, D*Note, Beth Hirsch and others.
And the first fruits of that relationship are exceedingly tasty, it must be said; his debut track is “So Far So Close”, it comes with a fine video, and you can watch that here.
On the track NIN3S peels back the years of house music before stepping forward; his classical piano training is evident in a lead melody of gravity and beauty, allowing the space to shine through, with a mournful smokiness that might out you in mind of Ryuichi Sakamoto.
Let that piano be your guide as you move into the track, in which a rolling, complex break, like Elvin Jones alive and beboppin’ on the latest thing, glides in double time, and ghostly voices punctuate. (Those drum skillz actually coming courtesy Dorado veteran and Outside frontman, Matt Cooper.)
The song takes its conceptual source from South American folklore: the shadowy tale of a man that whistles, yet who, when he sounds far away, appears right behind you.
“So Far So Close” is taken from NIN3S’ forthcoming debut album Hopeyard, to be released by Dorado in the spring.
Talking of his new venture, the man behind the project, Manuel García Guerra, says: “[It’s] the end and the beginning, my life compressed into music, with different and contrasting moods, emotions and stories.
“I stopped touring as Uner two years ago just before lockdown and my life changed. It was a hard process, but NIN3S is about my journey to creative fulfilment, reconnecting to the piano and my classical roots, and experimenting with electronic and organic instrumentation. We go back to the origins, where the end is the beginning again.”
