As we all know, you can’t set off on any kind of serious adventure without some kind of serious mishap to keep you on your toes - and a certain Volcano from Chile did a really good job of keeping the mood tense and the nails bitten in the days leading up toward embarking. Arriving at the airport at 4am it was nice to know the dimples can still be put to good use, and what was a cancelled flight ended up being a fairly enjoyable re-routing through Hong Kong and next thing I know I was literally on my feet in one of my most favourite cities in the world – Barcelona. But it wasn’t the famed architecture of Gaudi – nor was it the endless supply of Jamon Iberico that I could stuff in my belly (although the next few days I did to my fair share of that) that I was here for. No, I was here for one reason and one reason only – A good hearty rave.
Over the last decade I’ve had the pleasure of being in attendance at some of the most incredible musical events and festivals all over the world, but one that had always been on the hit-list yet had always eluded me was the Sonar Festival in Spain’s cultural capital. They say it’s the best festival for electronic music in the world and the past line-ups in it’s 17 year history read like a who’s who of the greatest pioneers of electronic and dancefloor based music globally – From Daft Punk to Bjork, Kraftwerk to Orbital, even Fat Freddys Drop made a seminal appearance back in 2006. One things for sure, it’s an event that prides itself on booking quality over just name acts (although don’t get me wrong, a lot of your heavy hitters are here too). As a by-product of our geographic isolation in New Zealand a lot of the more credible names on this side of the musical spectrum don’t ever quite make it so far as our shores – Here at Sonar, they’re all here from the moment the festival kicks off to the moment the last shapes are thrown many, many, many hours later each day of the event.
The event runs for three days and nights and is split into two locations. Sonar By Day is hosted in the Centre of Contemporary Culture and the Museum of Contemporary Art in La Rambla, whereas Sonar By Night is hosted at Fira Gran Via – a huge venue on the outskirts of the city.
Thursday see’s Sonar supposedly kicking off mildly I’m told, with the real festival getting into gear the following two days. But you could have fooled me. My hotel was literally a minutes walk from Sonar By Day – so within 15 minutes of landing it was a shower, change and next thing I was in amongst a hoard of extremely good looking Catalan’s sipping sangria’s and swaying to the sounds of South Carolina’s Toro Y Moi – a sound that was supposedly part of one the most ridiculous new genre tags in recent years – Chillwave. C-word aside they make some of the funkiest lush ya ever likely to hear.
Now, I’m a massive fan of Chaz and the band- with ‘Still Sound’ being one of my favourite jams of the year and their remix of Tegan & Sara’s ‘Alligator’ still makes me melt oh so - but for some reason they just weren’t getting it right on this day. A lot of technical problems and some pretty nasty feedback made for a hasty retreat to the stage where I was to spend most of my time over the next few days – The Sonar Dome which was hosted by the Red Bull Music Academy. Each year the stage is curated by the Academy and the line-up is mostly filled with ex-participants, Academy lecturers and Team members, and is easily the most talked about zone each year, every year since it’s begun. It also acts as a great meet-up for Academy folk who have been having withdrawls the last few months (or even years) from seeing their new extended musical fam. Within the space of a few minutes I was catching up with old buddies exchanging long forgotten stories about all kinds of antics that had taken place at Academies many moons ago. Good times ahoy.
The one thing that really surprised me about Sonar – a lot of Kiwi’s. It never ceases to amaze me that no matter how far away from home I get there’s always a (slightly) familiar face getting sweaty amongst the foreign throngs in the middle of the dancefloor somewhere in the world and there certainly were a few getting mad to the sounds of digital soca / tropical rave badman - Poirier. I’ve always been a big fan of Poirier and even though there were only around 27 people in attendance, his Big Day Out set at the LilyPad a couple of years back was something I’ll never forget. Alongside DJ’s like Radioclit, Diplo and Germany’s Daniel Haaksman – Poirier is another great example of DJ’s who will comb the ends of the earth for fresh sounds and beat templates – and like a good potion of the DJ’s I just mentioned, finds most of the inspiration in the Digital Cumbia of Argentina, the frentic rhythms of African subgenres like Angola’s Kuduro and Cote D’Ivoire’s Coupe Decale, and the most energetic of them all – the Power Soca of Trinidad & Tobago.
Poirer’s set was easily the highlight of the day for me, and you can experience it for your self here – and midway through his set when he dropped Jamie XX’s remix of ‘Rolling In The Deep’ I think everyone else in the Dome heartily agreed with me. Some Moombahton gems and assorted tropical nuggets later and it was Schlachtofbronx’s ‘Chambacu’ that sent the whole place into a frenzy.
Next stop – New York Slo-Mo Really Young Dude of the Moment - Nicolas Jaar inside the Sonar Hall. Rammed. Can’t get in. Myeh.
It was at this stage that some rumours started to circulate amongst my motley crew that Richie Hawtin was playing for free in the fruit markets in La Ramblas, not actually part of Sonar but two minutes walk away. It was this sort of thing that maybe me realise just how incredible this city is – one of the worlds biggest Techno DJ’s playing to thousands of adoring fans – for free – in amongst the fruit. M-nus label mate Marco Corola was even on hand to sell fruit. Weird spectacle. I dug it.
Back to Sonar briefly before being told the next vibe was at a Hotel down the road. In parallel with Sonar, all kinds of record label parties are hosted and the large majority of them are scattered amongst the very stylish rooftop bars of the hotels all in the vicinity of Sonar by Day. Hotflush (the label responsible for Joy Orbison’s anthemic ‘Hyph Mngo’) was my first taste of all this and I arrived as the party had already been going for a good 6 hours – Will Saul dropping Alan Braxe & Fred Falkes ‘Intro’ and things started to get a little hazy from there. I’m gonna blame New York city’s finest rudegirl pon de decks Stareyes who after not seeing her since the Academy in South Africa back in 2003 – we had some catching up to do.
It was pretty hard to tear myself from the rooftop shenanigans but it was back to Sonar to witness the closing sets of the Sonar Dome and Belgium’s San Soda was on fire. Dodgy turntables aside props to San for holding it down strictly vinyl…. It sounded great on that system and when he dropped the Piano version of Chilly Gonzales’s ‘Knight Moves’ it was the first of those spine-tingling rave cliché moments I was to have over the next few days. Big ol’ bag-o-bliss.
So all this action, and the Sonar By Night side of the equation hadn’t even begun yet, for that I’d have to wait til tomorrow…. The jetlag was kicking in, and a few plates of Jamon Iberico and sweet sweet Blanco later and I was taxi-ing back to my hotel for what would be the only decent sleep I was to get over the next three days. Yikes.
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