Sonar ´08 in Barcelona
Barcelona Apartments: Advanced Music and Multimedia Art during Sonar ´98 in Barcelona
This year is Sónar’s 15th anniversay and the festival is still a tree with a thousand and one infinitely intersecting branches. It is a multifaceted reality that has room for many other realities on different levels, at different speeds. The Sónar 2008 program exudes this plurality through a line-up of shows, exhibitions and activities that resist simple classification.
What we’ve dubbed ‘the feminine factor’ (in other words, the prominence of women and femininity in today’s music and art scenes) sits side-byside with ‘music bastardism,’ a new approach to the dancefloor that distances itself – further still – from the purism of days gone by, and, as SonarMàtica shows, the work of media artists who recover technologies from the past and use them to shape our perception of film, images and light. Best of all, none of these are completely localised and precise phenomena – they join many other ideas that expand and pollinate as they trace transversal paths throughout a complex program that aims to accurately reflect this increasingly international, interrelated and flexible breeding ground in which Sónar wants to keep playing a crucial role. A situation that simply didn’t exist fifteen years ago. Here it comes the 15th Barcelona International Festival of Advanced Music and Multimedia Art to the city from June 19th through June 21st.
Special nights: Goldfrapp, Leila, Ben Watt, Basquiat Strings and Camille
Golfrapp
Pop Glamour
Sónar is once again pleased to roll out the red carpet for Alison Goldfrapp and Will Gregory. Undoubtedly one of the strong points of this year’s festival, where their performance is also a gala presentation in Spain of “Seventh Tree”, their 4th studio album, a return to the calm and downtempo of this cult contemporary pop group. The unmistakable voice of Alison, now exalted as one of the unquestionable divas of international pop, will once again come under the spotlight in one of their more personal recitals, which will be as close to the glamour of cabaret as it is to the sophistication of their string arrangements. The concert will explore this balance between intensity and genius that makes Goldfrapp a true “delicatessen”.
Leila
Tension and melodies
The eagerly awaited return of an artiste de luxe has also been confirmed for the Opening Night of Thursday 19 June: Leila, the Londoner with Iranian roots, returns after eight years of silence with her studio album, “Blood, Looms and Blooms”, one of the most ambitious work of recent years. Its live presentation will consist of a matchless show featuring noise, melodies and great songs performed by an extensive assembly of instrumentalists and vocalists including Terry Hall, , legendary singer with The Specials, and Martina Topley Bird, also known for her work with Tricky. They will all be present at a one-off show on the Sónar Opening Night to give us an electronica master class.
Ben Watt
Deep house for gourmets
As well as Goldfrapp and Leila, there will be a DJ set from Ben Watt the creative half of Everything but the Girl and the promoter behind the Lazy Dog club (a legendary haunt in London’s deep house scene from 1998 to 2003). He has become a key element of high-quality dance music in Europe and, judging by his schedule, around the globe. His record label, the impeccable Buzzin’ Fly, releases material by artists like Justin Martin and the trio Rodamaal, as well as his own productions, which continue to arouse passion on innumerable dance floors.
Goldfrapp, Leila and Ben Watt will be performing on Thursday 19 of June from 10.30pm on the Opening Night in SonarPark in the Fira Gran Via (M2) area.
Basquiat Strings
Yesterday and today’s jazz in the hands of a string group
L’Auditori de Barcelona once again becomes a special Sónar stage hosting the performance of the highly unconventional Basquiat Strings, a string quintet with drums, who with only one album under their belt were nominated for a Nationwide Mercury Prize in 2007. Going into the depths of an undoubted passion for yesterday and today jazz, Basquiat Strings perform their own pieces and works by Wayne Shorter, Ornette Coleman and other jazz giants of the XXth century. It is a 100% acoustic show which recreates the group’s various sources and influences with sublime character: from the frantic rhythm of the string groups of Transylvania to the tradition of romantic sextets or the angular arrangements of Charles Mingus. A different way of enjoying jazz.
Basquiat Strings will be performing on Friday 20 June at 8.30pm at L’Auditori.
Camille
The new muse of experimental “a cappella”
Camille, one of the most refreshing surprises in French music in recent years, deploys her arsenal of vocal exercises in the best possible setting - the Palau de la Música Catalana. As part of the events to celebrate the Palau’s Centenary, Sónar is taking part with a focus based on the voice as the key element, but one which also goes far beyond the conventional song format. And it could be said that Camille is light years from the majority of the usual vocalists. Her ingenious treatment of her vocal cords seeks textures, rhythmic patterns and unusual tones, and makes phonemes and trills into absolutely fascinating arrays of sound, using both technological resources (she samples her own voice live herself) and the backing of classical instrumentation. The performance also reveals all the secrets of what will be her third LP, “Music Hole”, on which she has worked with the Brazilian body percussion group Barbatuques, among other artists. This unusual conception of music demands a setting that captures and amplifies the subtlety of her vocal music pirouettes, and the Palau de la Música meets all the requirements for enjoying this festival of unexpected rhythms, distorted words and impossible beatboxes.
Camille will be performing on Saturday 21 June at 9.00pm in the Palau de la Música Catalana
More information
Sonar ´08
Download the program here.
