Sónar: Day One Report

With no nighttime programming for the first day, Sónar Day One was a blissful introduction in to the super-clean cosmos of the festival before the big room hedonism gets underway tonight.

Having experienced virtual reality, played around on a load of 808s for longer than we should’ve done, we rinsed the +D activities a little bit more and sat in on a round table discussion featuring Kerri Chandler, Carl Craig, Luciano and other figures from the electronic heavyweight rank. After they had outlined exactly what the future of DJing will look like with the help of STEM files, we returned to the park to watch Kindness deliver a Whitney Houston cover to the masses on the green.

Worrying that we might have gone all soft – bumping beers with friends in the sun, I even considered taking my shoes off – the imposing Lynchian SonarHall lured us in for Arca and Jesse Kanda for an audiovisual display that stole the day. The testing but ultimately rewarding sounds of Xen were played out with the kind of glitchy foetal visuals that have become so iconic. As always with Arca, the next move will be the most interesting. With new material and two numbers that included his own rapping, this story is far from finished.

J.E.T.S. soundtracked the first signs of sundown with a beat-tweaking set that aligned with their colourful, neon-lit aesthetic. After Novelist shouted out the sexy ladies and the London mandem, we slipped out of the complex to prepare for today.

Like all the best curated events in the world, we only did a tiny fraction of what was available to us purely because there wasn’t enough time. We’ll keep trying, I’m hoping to build my own solar-powered synth range before the end of Redinho.

Check out some photos of Day One below.