Photo Credit: Estrella Damm
By: Saxe Coulson
Sonar Festival will play host to a stellar array of artists this year for its 25th rendition on June 14th, 15th, and 16th in Barcelona. The event is separated into Sonar by Day and Sonar by Night as well as well as its conference, Sonar +D, which includes discussions and workshops amongst music industry professionals. Sonar Festival has invited artists, attendees, innovators, entrepreneurs, creative types, and many more from all parts of the globe to unite since it’s first inception in 1994.
Coined as the “Festival of Advanced Music and Multimedia Art” by the music journalist, Ricardo Robles, Sonar will celebrate its 25th anniversary with a special performance by James Murphy of LCD Soundsystem and David and Stephen Dewaele of 2ManyDJs. Together they will perform a total of three, 6 hour DJ sets (one per day) that will be heard on the ultimate sound system complete with 7 towers of speakers and amplifiers.
Alva Noto & Ryuichi Sakamoto will display an astounding piano/electronica audiovisual spectacle entitled “Two” on June 17th at Teatre Grec for the closing concert. This will be only one of three concerts in the world this year where one can witness both artists together. Other A/V shows will be performed by Demdike Stare along with visual pioneer, Michael England as well as Tokimonsta who will debut her new live A/V show.
Other live sets will be performed by Laurent Garnier, Agoria, George Fitzgerald, Sinjin Hawke and Zora Jones, Alex Silva, Henry Saiz with a live band, DJ Earl and Nick Hook, Chloe – slow mo, Claude Speeed, The Barcelona Symphony Orchestra, Bicep, Fatima Al Qadiri, and many more. We will also see DJ sets by artists such as Tony Humphries, Daedulus, Diplo, Black Coffee, Gorillaz, Modeselektor, A-Trak, Helena Hauff, Thom Yorke, Richie Hawtin, Goldlink, Ben Klock and DJ Nobu, and Motor City Drum Ensemble with Jeremy Underground, and plenty more. DJ Harvey and John Talabot will play a 6-hour set on Friday and Saturday night and Bonobo will play twice on Friday night making for a total of 140 performances across 10 stages.
Check out the Spotify Playlist Here:
Sonar began the international tour in Reykjavik, Iceland on March 16th and 17th, Hong Kong on March 17th, and Istanbul on April 6th and 7th of 2018. Sonar has come a long way since the first rendition in 1994 that took place at the Centre de Cultura Contemporanea de Barcelona for Sonar by Day and at the Apolo Club for Sonar by Night. Laurent Garnier and Sven Vath were some of the first artists to headline the iconic festival before it moved to a new venue in 1997 and tripled its capacity to 30,000 attendees. Eventually, it grew to over 53,000 in the year 2000.
Since then it has seen performances by artists such as Bjork, Kraftwerk 3D, and The Chemical Brothers. It has also played host to numerous audiovisual and multimedia activities as well as its auxiliary event, Sonar +D. The full spectrum of Sonar in Barcelona also includes lectures, video art projections, art installations, demos, performances, conferences, and plenty more.
For the full line-up and more info as well as tickets please visit here.