Wednesday, 23rd of June, 2004

Last night I left off diarising upon our departure for Barcelona. On our arrival one thing was immediately noticeable: It was hot. Damn hot. We got a map of the city and were told that we could get a T-10 (10 metro trips) for only €6. Armed with these, we headed off to catch the train into town. Strangely, the music they played on the train in was Beethoven’s 5th. Not quite sure what they were trying to say with that.
A change to the metro system later, we arrived at Camp de L’Arpa station and found our apartment only a couple of blocks down from the main road, past a nice-looking patisserie and fruit shop. In fine European style the woman who was waiting to greet us had been smoking - but fortunately there wasn’t much of a smell. The place was very pleasant; a tiny kitchen and small (but perfectly fine) bathroom, with a separate bedroom and a sofa-bed in the living room. Dale Harrison (illustrious bass player in the Herd & Bass Elefant, who I’ve known since I started Uni) had emailed the previous week, having decided rather late to head over to Sónar. He’d been having hassles finding accommodation and wondered if we had space for him. This was no problem at all, so when he checked out from his crappy hotel the following day we shared with him for two nights.

Dale joining us was also convenient as we had inadvertently bought an extra two tickets for the Thursday night concert at L’Auditori. After settling in and buying some fruit (and a very pungent chorizo sausage), we discovered we had very little time to get back into town, pick up our Sónar Pro passes and then head over to L’Auditori. The concert started at 7:30pm and the office for passes closed at 8:30, so we had to get our passes first. I had a vague idea that Catalunya was the right station for the main Sónar area, so we got off the Metro there, and proceeded to get rather lost. I think that after New York’s grid and Amsterdam’s bicycle-wheel, the weird angles and even weirder street nomenclature of Barcelona confused us somewhat.

We thus arrived even more hot and sweaty than necessary at the Sónar office to pick up our “accreditations”. Passports were examined, numbers given out, digital photos taken, and almost immediately we had lovely new laminated Sónar Pro accreditation passes to hang around our necks. We were handed rather spiffy vinyl bags full of useless junk (and some useful non-junk, I hasten to add), picked up the English-language program paper thing, and attempted to find our way to L’Auditori. This proved far less difficult than I’d imagined, with some inspired guessing. We also glimpsed our first piece of bizarre architecture - a new phallic object, mostly finished, a few blocks away. Clearly not a Gaudi, but perhaps a contemporary version thereof.
Luckily Dale had been running late too. We waited and were let in after the first number (although maybe it was the second?)
The concert consisted of various electronic artists performing alongside a symphony orchestra. The first we saw was Ryuichi Sakamoto, who didn’t seem to do much except create occasional frequency sweeps. The orchestra played some stock-standard classical stuff, which didn’t seem to do much for the collaboration either. Perhaps the mixing wasn’t up to scratch.
Following him, we got Pan Sonic doing a piece of theirs, beautifully orchestrated by, er, someone. Their breed of minimal electronic breaks and slowly evolving tones worked wonderfully with exclamations from the brass and shimmers from the strings, although the percussion section didn’t always seem to be perfectly in time. Although the dialogue here was pre-prepared, this seemed to be the most successful collaboration.
Last, after Pan Sonic, was Fennesz. The two orchestra pieces chosen for (by?) him were more suited for this kind of thing than Sakamoto’s - first something by (I presume) a contemporary Spanish composer (somebody Torres?) and then a John Adams piece (minimalist composer, same vintage as Steve Reich etc). Fennesz’s contributions seemed more interesting than Sakamoto’s, with his trademark digital grunge, and some nice delay-line effects audible during orchestral pauses.

Following this concert, we all headed back to the Sónar by Day site to see Megadebt perform. This collective are associated with Beta Bodega in Miami, and do a sort of political electronica, bits of breakcore, weird effects courtesy of Otto Von Schirach and friends… It was interesting but suffered from sound restrictions that made a bit of a mockery of the more fierce bits, as our host Ed kept pointing out with much enthusiastic swearing ;)
Dale took us to a good area for dinner, and we confirmed that the only place in the world that can’t do a decent pizza is New Zealand (thanks for pointing that out, Ange!)

Next day, Dale moved in in the morning, and we then headed in to check out the city. First stop, Diagonal, where Ange wanted to look in a Camper store (cute Spanish shoes, kids!) Then we walked all the way down the Ramblas to the water, and then through the narrow winding streets of the Barrio Gotic, where I stumbled upon a tiny clothing store that included a table-full’s worth of boutique electronica shop. Stumbling became more than just a metaphor as the heat combined with my already less-than-happy foot situation, and it was with relief that we sat down for a lunch of — none other than schawarma pita! Who could’ve guessed? The schawarma here was ok, but they had marinated chillis, reasonable tahini (called “sesame” in Spanish) and a great chilli sauce which we dunked our chips in. Nice one.
Oh - and don’t let me forget the wonderful gelati from Dino’s - particularly good were the Dutch Chocolate and the Banana, in this blogger’s less-than-humble opinion (who needs to be humble about taste in ice-cream anyway?)

Next, we headed over to Sónar by Day to see Nobody and Prefuse 73, both DJing despite Nobody being billed as live. Then we went over to Sónar Complex to take in Maja Ratkje’s extraordinary vocal inflections - much more impressive live than the recordings I’ve heard. Later stuff in the same Rune Grammofon showcase seemed interesting, but the last thing I was going to do was miss Drop The Lime! This boy can perform, and with programming that’s like Venetian Snares without the odd time signatures, plus rude-bwoy-punk antics on stage and mic, this was a definite highlight. About 20 minutes in, he told us he was up to his last song. Doily (from Brøklyn Beats) kept on getting him to play more, though, so we ended up with a full set. He chucked some 12″s and one CD into the audience, but I didn’t manage to teleport myself to the right spot in time (as he said, some people got sleeves, some people got records - hmm). Unfortunately Sónar made no effort whatsoever to make it easy to get artists’ releases, and I didn’t run into the guy after his gig, so I’ll have to settle for the 12″ and 7″ I have (plus some mp3s) for now. Expect to hear more on UFog upon my return.
Oh, and I spied Jace Clayton (aka DJ /rupture) standing behind me looking very amused, but when I turned round again to have a chat he’d gone. His pass said he was with Criterion (ie Brøklyn Beats) but he lives in Barcelona these days anyway I believe…

After DTL it was time to go back to Sónar Village (by the way, all these stages are in one area, much like a Big Day Out only more compact [and profuse thanks to Seb for recommending Sónar Pro passes - the queues for the plebs looked insane!]) where the Lex Records showcase was happening. Boom Bip DJed some excellent selections - bits of Steve Reich mixed with tweeting birds, etc. As we awaited Hymie’s Basement, it became apparent that only one guy was on stage. It turned out for some reason or other Why? couldn’t make it, so we got basically a Fog set, with a couple of Hymie’s songs dropped in - no bad thing, mind you. Fog is a bit of a lunatic, and put together a great set with bizarre sampler-created backings, and songs on piano, acoustic guitar and vocals.
Afterwards, Ange & I wandered for a ridiculously long time around the Rambla, trying to find something to eat (having been told not eat on La Rambla itself). Eventually, just as we were about to give up (not sure what that means - we had no intention of missing dinner. Um) we found a place that seemed half-decent, doing paella that looked ok. I had a chicken and veges one, neatly avoiding the seafood/fish issue, and Ange had something seafood. It was ok, pretty much - nothing great. Our waitress was initially surly, but not unhelpful.

On Saturday morning Dale had decided that his cooking skills must not go to waste, so after getting supplies, he cooked up a smashing breakfast that can only be described as a “Spanish omelette”: fried up chorizo sausage, spring onion and other delicacies with egg, very tasty indeed.
After brekkie, Ange & I headed two stops down the track to the rather amazing Sagrada Familia, which dazzled considerably more in person than in photographs - particularly the opposite side from the train station. We didn’t have any music to see till about 6pm, so we wandered the city. I had found out the day before that I could take my laptop in and plug it into a network cable in the Pro area @ Sónar, so I did that, after which we dropped the laptop home and then wandered town some more, taking in a whole bunch of record stores (particularly the awesome cd.drome) and more Camper stores etc… Ange discovered that the range wasn’t that big because it was summer-sandal season, and thus didn’t decide on anything until we went back up to Diagonal.

Funny black shoes with bizarrely unmatching designs on each foot later, we dropped back to the hotel and then headed back into town - only somewhere in the middle of all this it had started RAINING. Well no - not raining. POURING. This is clearly unheard-of in Barcelona at this time of year, and consequently there was no preparation whatsoever for this eventuality. The Pro area was crowded to bursting, simply because it was undercover, and fans of Max Tundra (second artist in the Domino showcase going on out at the Sónar Village, just inside the main area from Sónar Pro) were getting summarily soaked. Nonetheless the Tundra (Ben Jacobs, here joined by his sister on vocals) put in a sterling effort, and when we ventured out at the end of his set it was positively bopping along.
We had to go back undercover after him though, and sometime during To Roccoco Rot’s set we discovered that they weren’t really playing after all - the stage had been flooded and everything was being packed away.

And there I must leave you, as this store is being closed in one minute. I’ll have to finish tomorrow, maybe first thing if I get my act together. The suspense must be killing you - how can Four Tet play his set when the stage is being covered in tarps and the electricals being removed? Tune in very soon!

One Response to “Tour diary entry #3”

1. Ed.... says:
   September 3rd, 2004 at 12:22 pm

   yeah sonar was fun… so was vulgarity in front of thousands of people… glad i could help><