Sonar ‘08
www.sonar.es.

Arriving on the heels of a sweltering heat wave in mid-June, the Sonar ‘08 Festival provided a three-day weekend of non-stop electronic music for the 60,000 partiers who attended. The annual festival is now pushing past ten years when it first began in the Catalan District of Barcelona, Spain. Since then, the festival has grown into a mass media affair touching upon art, cinema and media conferences all grounded upon a solid foundation of music.

With a quickly growing repertoire of bands moving into the festivals line-up, this year continued that trajectory, transforming the city that surrounded the event into a week long pulsating sonic affair. Split into both a day and nighttime series of events, the PM slots of the festival took place at the über-sleek designed MACBA (Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona) while the AM slots took place in a massive air hanger complex about 15 minutes outside the city’s centre. All of which provided the festival-goers a good sixteen hours a day session if they so chose to be fully inundated with music. Presented below are a few snapshot reviews of notable acts that caught my ears:

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QUIET VILLAGE

The London-based musical duo, Joel Martin and Matt Edwards, were hard at work, tipping the Friday and Thursday crowds into a sweet lull with their afternoon soundtrack, a reflective and dreamy DJ set. Quiet Village provided a nice respite against the beast that was this summer heat wave and became one of the most outstanding acts at Sonar this year.

The name of the group may sound familiar as its also the title of the 1959 watershed album from Martin Denny that redefined the exotica genre. Their well received, recently released LP, Silent movie , could have easily been pigeonholed by critics as nothing more than Balearic resurrection, but seeing their live performance revealed the many dimensions to their sound. Rather than churn out the repertoire of genres Quiet Village represented as they sampled from a myriad of marginalized vinyls ranging from little-known Italian film composers to obscure singer/songwriters. Lets just say, their set has turned the hot afternoon into an erotic lounge. During their set, “Too High to Move” and “Pillow Talk” were grand displays of raw production talent from crate-digger Martin and rising dance-music star Edwards (known otherwise as Radio Slave.)

Their set was harmonic, intelligent and relevant with lush piano keys, slow downtempo beats, spaced-out guitars, deep echo effects and honey-dripping vocals wrapped around a beautiful string section. Outstanding!

http://www.myspace.com/quietvillage

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THEO PARRISH

As one of the most anticipated DJ sets of the Sonar ‘08 festival, Detroit’s maverick producer, Theo Parrish, proved absolutely fearless with his music selection. He came on at 4:30 am, quite early for a Saturday morning to a surprisingly…ahem…ecstatic and energized, gum-chewing crowd. Parrish swooped in and virtually erased all memories of the high energy Reggaetón act on before him, by opening up his set with the slowest, sweetest selection of gritty soul. Then he meticulously went through his own infamous re-edits of Minnie Ripperton, Eddie Turner and Fela Kuti, as well as unleashing a few of his own techno and minimal sound creations all of which can be found on his Sound Signature label.

Parrish was of the few acts that could effectively blend musical genres and blur the chronological lines that separated the past from the present. He presented a wide and informative spectrum of music history, whilst being no stranger to dropping the bass and EQing the shit out of the track. Parrish moved to Detroit in 1994 and since then became one of the city’s shining stars in the underground music scene. And now at the festival, Parrish truly did his own thing and relished in it, satisfying both the dancers on the floor and the less mobile, draw-dropped audiophiles.

http://www.myspace.com/soundsignature

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ROISON MURPHY

Hot, loud, moody and amazing are a few adjectives to quickly describe Roison Murphy’s performance at Sonar ‘08, and having caught her performance with Matthew Herbert at the same festival 3 years prior, I was more than pleased to see yet another side of this unique Irish diva.
She held an electric stage presence and displayed custom designed wardrobe with a nod towards 60´s airline chic uniforms and 80’s Grace Jones. Murphy’s expansive vocals filled the giant venue as she breezed through the new material from her latest album, Overpowered , in which she collaborated with such producers and music groups as Bugz in the Attics, Mark de Clive-Lowe, and Groove Armada.

Beside dishing out the hit singles “Let Me Know” and “You Know Me Better”, the max-capacity crowd was also treated to a cover of the 80’s boogie classic, “Keep on” by James D-Train Williams. Murphy has been in the business for a long time now since her recent breakthrough with Moloko and it was a pleasure to witness that her development as an artist has reached new heights.

www.roisinmurphy.com

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DAEDELUS
L.A’s own one stop chop-shop of block rocking beats, leftfield pop snippets and riot inducing breakdown’s Daedelus, gave a great show to an encore insisting crowd in the Sonar festival’s Dome area under the Spanish sultry sun. The dome provided a nice shade from the midday sun, as well as the one-man midi orchestra, Alfred Darlington (born Alfred Weisberg-Roberts). He hit all the right buttons via a specially built midi controller that lit up fantastically like a Christmas tree.

Clips of Portishead and Nirvana jumped capriciously around on piano breaks and popping beats, making his lengthy two-hour set a scintillating mishmash of electronica, hip-hop and pop culture ephemera. A solid show and a set that may only have been enhanced had Daedelus played the massive Sonar festival by night.

www.myspace.com/daedelusdarling