Sonar recap

BAM!

offf + sonar = high quality information overload

2weeks barcelona = 2 years of inspiration

after the offf here`s a mash-up of our sonar 2011:

sonar by day:
besides the classic and famous acts and music there was also place for the experimental and new. gilles peterson, apparat, fourtet, zinc and then there was the sewing orchestra, openreel ensemble and the barcelona laptop orchestra. highly experimental soundscapes, patterns and rhythm.

as for the visual aspect – everything there was up to the artist – apparat had small but efficient installation on a dark stage, Global Communication played their set behind semi-transparent screens projected with fitting ambient-esque abstract forms. sonar by day just didn`t care about visuals.

inspiring people in this years business talks – meet the pro concept really makes sense for anybody related to music and creative business. for us it was the possibility to spread the network and work internationally. we made the experience that although barcelona brings such amazing motion-designers to life like bungalow (with whom we had the chance to have a little chat), physalia studio, dvein, etc… the club scene doesn’t really care that much about the visuals – some clubs just let some random dvd running through the night.
tine to change that!

sonar by night:
well kind of disappointing visually speaking. even though the sonar provided led walls spread trough the areas – it generally lacked a sense of being one idea. beside the custom made footage some artists like paul kalkbrenner (simple abstract 2d-3d animations matched the speed of the music / steamboat metaphor) mary anne hobbes (her, empty roads, empty areas, her, empty parking lots, and her again) or the amazing chris cunningham (i don`t need to explain i guess, i don`t think that i really can… let`s just say that he brought the triptych into the 21st century) the content consisted of 20 clips randomly mixed together, no matter what was going on on stage and a live mixed camera feed displaying the artists…

highly inspiring was also the visual setup of aphex twin, doing his typical face-montages live: a face-recognition software made some of the guests to aphex-twins who immediately started to interact with the projection.

it`s about the music
tendencies were clear: dub step is still a main influence, not only for the many uk-acts. further there were some french artists ranging from minimal to weird, local heroes from spain to japanese craziness, music from the 50ies (the Gasmask Killer) to experimental noise-like sound collages (sewing orchestra), people from 2 -72. anything goes – its all music and worth to hear it out.

xx