Sonar Festival - 18th & 19th of June 04 - Barcelona, Spain

The first in a two part review of this year’s Sonar festival, the leading electronic music festival held every year in Barcelona. The review comes courtesy of J. Villalba. First up is Sonar de Dia, the day time festival and the second part covering Sonar de Noche (the night time festival) will be up shortly so be sure to check back!

Barcelona looks great at seven a.m... We don´t. Its friday morning. We are ready for the 10th aniversary of Sonar Festival, in which a big amount of hip hop related artists we´ll be performing for the next two days. Botánica Del Jíbaro (Manuvers, Soarse Spoken, Stres...), Prefuse 73 and Dj Nobody, Dabrye, Buck 65, Dj Boom Bip, Fog, Roots Manuva, Prince Po, Guru aand Dj Doo Wop, Beans, Stones Throw All Stars, Kid Koala are some of the names that got together in Barcelona for this Advanced Music Festival thing along with some of the heads of "contemporary popular music and DJing" such as Ryuichi Sakamoto, Ritchie Hawtn & Ricardo Villallobos, Massive Attack, etc.

The event happened in a big space set in Barcelona´s Contemporary Culture centre, with various stages featuring constant DJ sets and live shows on rotation from 12 pm till 10 pm.

Friday the 17th

Due to sleepyness we get late to what I’m told is one of the great moments of the day: Dabrye´s live showcase. Beer in hand we get ready for Prefuse 73 and Nobody´s DJ set. Both spin their and their friends´ music in a very calmed ambient, acting as the perfect selectors for a sunny mediterranean afternoon. Nothing but a correct slowed down hip hop session that reminds me of the amount of good music that these guys have put out and also I guess why people don’t make efforts on their sets. The special reaction of the crowd went down when Herren (aka Prefuse 73) played a track from Jahbitat´s new album (on the new Supaseed Label, from Barcelona - www.supaseed.net). Last thing to remember, the plastic cup that was thrown to P 73´s as a response to "Promo-CD Frisbies". Beer and dope went well with the set, but I was expecting more than two friends spinning some records, anyway...

Hungry for some action we get to the main stage were Spanish MC´s La Excepción finish their show, letting the "mesh and dunks" audience see how gypsy music and hip hop collide (wether this is good or bad...). Then Dj Boom Bip took to the 1200´s for an eclectic ambient-esque session great for a relaxing beer... After this Prince Po of Organized Konfusion comes to the stage for a short showcase based on his new album out on Lex. No DJ and no crowd response were two of the factors that made it kinda boring. The MC didnt seem to connect with the public which made the show lose strenghth all the way till the end. Prince Po´s better moments were to come...

Boom Bip spins again and then one half of Hyme´s Basement (Andrew Boder) aka Fog shows up on stage surrounded by 1200s, what looks like an MPC-esque sampler, an acoustic guitar and a piano. It took us by surprise. I see that giving a concert based on him and his acoustic guitar might be one of the closest moment of semiotic guerilla seen at Sonar, but I got to say that after a promising start where Fog built up the rythm track with a 1200 and a sampler and then started to sing and play the piano the interest decreased as the straight folk song went thru... I liked some of the parts, as well as the nerdy sense of humour and the comments on Bush and politics but i think it wasnt the time for that kind of performance. That was it for the Friday.

Saturday the 18th

Saturday morning. Today we get ready for a hard day... Me and my partner in crime Delise will DJ at Sonar de Dia from 2 pm till 4 pm. We get there at 12, where DJ El Chavo (from Supaseed label) drops a fine and well mixed selection of underground hip hop from Lex, Stones Throw to Eastern Developments and the such. Definetly one of the heads to watch out for in Barcelona´s music scene. After this we do our set which consists of two hours of 4 deck mixing . We play (in a very fucked up set up, including two wrecked tables) straight hip hop going from jazzy contemporary rap to 90´s classics, putting stress on mash ups and remixes. At the end of our set we´re asked by El Chavo if Stres and Soarse Spoken from Botanica del Jíbaro can come up for a freestyle. We deliver some instrumentals as our set ends with various super dope freestyles by these two American MC´s. I got fucking surprised by their freestyles...

With the job done it’s party time again... But we’ve got to wait a few hours to have it... In the mean time we get to know how hard is it to get a well served beer... After lunch we go and see Dark Circle (signed to Jazz Fudge). It’s funny because these two end up DJing with our mixers (it’s funny how you recognize someone by a mixer...) as the Sonar Fest only provided Pioneer 500s. Before the live show Dj Hysteria and Son of D.C. give a mini-set dropping classic gems and some remixes (such as wrong side of the tracks over Blazhay Blazay) all mixed up with some correct scratching and sentence dropping with an MPC. Nothing special, but nice... After this is Dark Circle´s show... One DJ dropped the scratches, the other pressed play on the MPC for some dark-vadimesque-beats while the MCs went through their new album Civilians... Political hip hop with a flow reminding me of Latryx, unfortunately it didnt catch my attention much. I don’t know but I really think rap concerts need to be re-thought... To me it was just good beats for some medium MCs... Rain comes for the end of the day and Sonar de Día is over... I need some sleep. We got Sonar de Noche to come...

For more information on the Sonar festival and its history visit their site. Many thanks to J. Villalba for taking the time to do this review. All images courtesy of Sonar. Stay tuned for part 2!