It doesn’t fail: if the heat hits it means that Sónar won’t be far away, so what less than a suffocating heat wave to welcome the return of the great summit of advanced music and digital creativity after two years of forced fallow ? Said and done, Sónar takes over from Primavera Sound and kicks off this Thursday in full sun and with a program that, those responsible for the Barcelona event point out, continues to bet on innovation and talent. A combo that may not feed superlative headlines but that allows the Barcelona festival to continue working on its brand, a claim as powerful as or more powerful than the poster itself, while claiming to be “a sampler and laboratory of the cultural diversity of our time”.
In recent days the gears of that urban extension dedicated to digital art that is Sónar Extra have already been activated in spaces such as the Palau Güell or the Tàpies Foundation, but it will be today, more than a thousand days and two summers later, when the festival disembarks again at the Fira de Barcelona venue to reactivate a rhythm machine in which, always spinning with innovation and local talent, the same goes for reggaeton by Ms Nina and the reinvention of ‘Clamor’ by Maria Arnal and Marcel Bagès, the street rap ‘made in’ La Florida de Morad, the vocal juggling of Tarta Relena, the hand in hand of Niño de Elche with the music of popular festivals in Valencia, the wild and committed pop of Samantha Hudson. ..
And that only at Sónar del Día, the first (and this year, with the thermometers soaring, also especially challenging) contact with a festival that, given the overwhelming nature of the season and some festivals that are increasingly devoted to the search for the head definitive poster, he prefers to follow his own and make his own profile with usual suspects like The Chemical Brothers and Richie Hawtin, and old acquaintances of premiere like The Blaze or some reborn Moderat.
With these letters, Sónar takes up the thread of a few nights that are equally entrusted to the recreational chemistry of Eric Prydz and The Blessed Madonna as to the pull of C.Tangana, a surprise signing for the winter market (it was initially scheduled for Primaver Sound) who returns to Barcelona to continue pulling the strings of ‘El Madrileño’ although with the timing somewhat shorter. The soul mutations of Bonobo, the sandunguero hurricane of Nathy Peluso, the perpetual transformation of Arca and the rap connection of AJ Tracey complete a nightly line-up with which Sónar wants to recover all the lost dance.
