by clrcdd
last week the Sonar festival 2009 took place in barcelona. the most obvious trend to observe was that there are much more live performances going on rather than simply djing, so lets summarize. Day 1 featured Tim Exile with a show entitled "we are the robots", where the musician was accompanied by an essemble of 4 robotic instruments.(video) later that day we watched french experimental hiphop producer Debruit who is also worth mentioning for his fine cut-up sound.
the second day got interesting when viennas Dorian Concept rocked the stage and got wobbly with Bombsquad (listern here) who in my opinion played the best dubstep-set at sonar... and it got really interesting when Ryoichi Kurokawa (video) performed an eclectic audio/visual show using four laptops.
the third and last day was one of the electronic performers. The Raster Noton showcase, featuring SND, Byetone, Atom™ and especially Alva Noto, who performed using a gigantic audiovisual live patch(max msp or homebrew i guess), was nothing less than cutting edge (video1-interface / video2). Furthermore you should check the sound of Lukid, who kept the dub-heads knodding in the dome.
At night the Animal Collective turned the stage into a big playground and brought psychedelic overkill. Followed by Beardyman (video), whose very unique way of performing is worth watching. Props also to Sinden form the UK for bringing some oldskool jungle to the sonar night.
listen:
dorian concept - sonar set
debruit - sonar set
lukid - sonar set
peaceout







