Legends, locals and dance locura - a Sónar 2024 preview
Plus Rustie, Thomas Bangalter, Verraco and more
Just two weeks after Primavera Sound shredded my soul - in a good way, I think - it’s back to the festivals for me, as Sónar celebrates its 31st anniversary in Barcelona this week.
If you’re there, do come and say hello. I will most likely be at some of these.
Legends
If there is one Sónar act that has been underlined three times in bright ink in my diary since the line up was released it is Air playing “Moon Safari” (Friday 22h at SonarClub). I was actually living in Paris when this album was released and rarely has a record felt more utterly in step with where I was in the world as Moon Safari did during the first half of 1998. I know it note-from-note and back-to-back and yet age hasn’t withered it one bit. Plus, Air’s new live show is rumoured to be spectacular visually.
After Air I will doing my damndest to stay awake for New York legend Danny Tenaglia (Friday 5.30h at SonarPub), who might possibly be my favourite DJ I have never seen live. I adore the New York house sound of Tenaglia et al and, if he is only playing for 90s minutes rather than the requisite 13 hours, this still promises to be spectacular.
Do I stay with Danny, though, or do I go and see DJ Flight & MC Chickaboo (Friday 5.30h at SonarLab), who are on at exactly the same time, bringing a double dose of jungle legends to Sónar? I really don’t know. But I do know I will enjoy whatever course I take.
The following night brings another mouth-watering prospect for house music fans, as Kerri Chandler brings his Reel-2-Reel live experience to Sónar (Saturday 5.30h at SonarPub). It is, as the name suggests, a 100% reel-to-reel session, which I can’t even fathom of conceiving, let along pulling off in front of a crow of thousands. Then again, this is Kerry effing Chandler at the controls, an absolute legend of house music and astute musical selection.
Sónar has a reputation for bringing live techno to the party - I remember an astounding Underground Resistance set a few years ago, that was so exciting I almost exploded at the sheer fluidity of it all - and this year brings fraternal second wavers Octave One (Saturday 22.40h at SonarLab), whose Detroit sounds are incredibly sharp and often very melodic. Think Blackwater, of course. But there is a lot more to Octave One than just Blackwater.
After seeing the breathtaking Clipse reunion at Primavera, I am very much in the mood for live rap music. And who better than California’s Vince Staples (Saturday 23.30h at SonarPub), a rap artist who manages to perfectly balance the avant with the ‘ave it?
Flat-out dance
Both Stacey Hotwaxxx Hale and DJ Paulette, who go back-to-back at Sónar (Saturday 21.20h at SonarVillage), could have fitted into this preview’s legends slot. Detroit’s Hale is the godmother of house, the first female DJ to play house music on the radio in Detroit in the late 1980s and a DJ of rare finesse. DJ Paulette is a Manchester legend, Haçienda resident and superstar in France, who published her brilliant book, Welcome to the Club, in 2023. Between them they have more than six decades of DJing experience, which is why I am putting them squarely into the category of flat-out dance.
As too falls Jessie Ware (Friday 23.30h at SonarPub), a fabulously modern British pop star who is in touch with the demands of the dance world without being in thrall to them. She is, apparently, an outstanding live performer, blowing the roof off of Primavera Sound 2022, and I am determine not to miss her again.
Experimental
Where would Sónar be without its share of weird, wobbly and downright erratic electronic music? One of my favourite things about the festival, in fact, is the way it balances the profoundly different with the out-and-out danceable.
Loraine James (Saturday 17h at SonarHall), amusingly, majored in commercial music at the University of Westminster. I say “amusingly” because, while I am sure James could knock out a lilting dance hit if she wanted, her path over six solo albums has always been turbulent and classy.
Laurel Halo - as in Laurel Halo presents “Atlas” with Leila Bordreuil (Saturday 19.45h at Complex+D) - is similar, in that I have literally no idea what to expect of her live gig. Will it be classically ambient, like her excellent 2023 album Atlas? Jazzy and occasionally dubbed out, like her work with the Moritz von Oswald trio? Outright clubby, like the last time I saw her DJ? Who knows?
London rapper CASISDEAD (Friday 22.40h at SonarLab) keeps his identity a strict secret, does few interviews and only released his debut album in 2023, after almost 20 years in the game. Luckily, Famous Last Words was a sensational work of late nights, dark alleys, creeping mortality, faded glamour and seedy 80s beats. And this rare live set is to be treasured.
Local artists
Every year Sónar does sterling work in bringing local talent to the festival. This year, I recommend Bikôkô (Thursday 15.30h at SonarHall) for her Erykah Badu-on-jazz soul slink; Adelaida (Friday 16.15h at Complex+D), who is premiering her album Muérdago (“mistletoe”), in which baroque electronics meet pop mischief; and Catalan heroes Mainline Magic Orchestra (Saturday 16.20h at SonarVillage), a band who put more thought and intensity into their live shows than most people experience in their three score years and ten. Expect trickery, oddness and jubilant house beats.
AI
Sonar+D, the festival’s space for exploring technological ideas, is going big on AI this year, as is perhaps to be expected. Two events that have captured my attention are Surprise! AI Feedback and the Unexpected (Thursday 15h at SonarÀgora) by Marta Verde, a visual artist, creative technologist and educator who teaches at the Berklee College of Music.The premise is simple: she will explain how she is finding innovative ways to use AI technology. But it sounds just about right to ease us in to the topic.
Giving a very different perspective on things is writer Joanna McNeil, whose Stories from the AI Underclass (Friday 17h at Stage+D) will explore show “how tools designed to make life easier are benefitting from uncosted labour, contributing to work becoming increasingly alienating for a huge part of the global population”. Amen to that!
Some listening
Can Rustie ever be low key? Probably not. But Black Ice Mudra, his first new music since 2015, is about as close as it gets, a drum-less number that swirls and threatens like an icy snow storm. There is an admirable power to his production here, a kind of stadium drone, although I do keep on expecting the drums to kick in.
Kaytranada - Drip Sweat (feat. Channel Tres)
Drip Sweat has many excellent elements to it - a swinging breakbeat, lots of murk and a brilliantly insouciant vocal from Channel Tres. What really makes it, though, is the mournful synth hook, which is one of those stupidly simple and yet utterly addictive melodies that surely every producer dreams of coming up with. In this case, it holds the song together perfectly, ensuring maximum re-plays.
I will forever love the music of Thomas Bangalter, be it solo or in Daft Punk. But it is probably a mark of his rather diffuse recent solo work that I took three days to check out CHIROPTERA, the soundtrack for a performance created with artist JR and choreographer Damien Jallet. Mythologies was far more interesting in idea that in reality and Daaaaaalí!, while great, was very low key. More fool me, though, as CHIROPTERA is fabulous, a quasi-classical piece of electronic music that reminds me of Wendy Carlos’ best work in its brooding elegance. I would call it Bangalter’s strongest release since Daft Punk, which admittedly is a small field, but significant nonetheless.
God the fun you can have with a filthy descending bass line, some weird industrial noises, charging drums and a lot of imagination. The new Verraco EP, Breathe… Godspeed, is a marvellous work of maximalist innovation, with ideas piled on top of inspiration, piled on top of fun. And Godspeed is, at a push, the best track on it.
Witch - Ain’t Nobody (featuring Theresa Ng'ambi and Hanna Tembo)
Who the hell covers Ain’t Nobody - quite simply one of the most adored records in history - these days? Zambian Zamrock pioneers Witch, apparently, and damn if they don’t manage to bring something special and new to the old chestnut, adding great lumbering layers of production and a bass line that wouldn’t know “quit” if it looked it up in the dictionary.
Things I’ve done
Line Noise - With Laetitia Sadier
This week on Line Noise I interviewed one of my favourite musicians of all time: Laetitia Sadier, of Stereolab, Monade, the Laetitia Sadier Source Ensemble and also a fantastic solo artist. In the interview we talked about France, politics, not being a Marxist, religion, the age of Aquarius, water shortage and so much more, including her brilliant recent album Rooting For Love, which is out now on Drag City.
The playlists
Look, I don’t mind if you don’t follow my two playlists of new music, one, which is long and dates back for years, and one, which covers just 2024. But let me down gently eh?
Desperate to see Danny Tenaglia at some point!