Between Arca and new African dance music

The British duo The Chemical Brothers, made up of Tom Rowlands and Ed Simons, returned to Sónar as the main headliners of the 29th edition of the festival. They celebrate the 25th anniversary of their second album, Dig your own hole with which they achieved their first number one thanks to Block rockin’ beats, a theme with which they open their concert. strangely in the set list the new theme was conspicuous by its absence The darkness that you fear published last year as pandemic restrictions were loosened.

But, beyond the specific themes, what really fascinates about his proposal is the interaction of the music with the visual elements, in a spectacular staging in which the two enormous robots that illustrate under the influence , nor endless detailed projections in high definition that gave his show a character of psychedelic techno. With phases in which the public, which packed the main stage of the SonarClub, literally went crazy in a collective catharsis worthy of sociological study. its troops big beats they are wrapped in a visual poetic that does not hesitate to resort to manga aesthetics or polyhedral dancers who seem to be taken from a Bauhaus school ballet, not to mention the colorful stroboscopic images, or the masks typical of classical Greek theater. All attention to detail, combining a fondness for robots with ethereal butterflies or parades of drummers, and filmed in a way that it seems that the images come out of the screens.

The duo Scorpion Kings offered a session of amapiano, new electronic dance music that is sweeping

TCB’s performance overlapped with that of the Venezuelan Arca, another regular name at the festival. On this occasion it was preceded by the imposing edition of the five volumes of the experimental albums Kick, plus two new tracks, the soul that brought you Y It fell and a remix of the classic big science by Laurie Anderson. With these credentials she appeared on the SonarPub stage to offer a completely improvised performance that began with the medley of the explicit prada Y rakatan full of stanzas that define it very well, such as: “How strange/oh how strange” or that very explicit “I eat the world right now/with this desire to fuck”.

Dressed in long boots with pointed heels and a bodysuit that quickly exposed her breasts, she continued with the soul that brought you a reggaeton and another sex bomb full of libidinous verses, and Fire, rapped at full speed, in tongue twister style, with a “burning fire flow”. Unbridled, she got on the equipment that she then used to DJ, before ending up asking permission to improvise a slow melody on the keyboard that stunned the audience. clubbers in the mood for beats accelerated. Genius and figure in what was a totally crazy show.

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Ramon Surio

Just as noteworthy on the last night shift was the extensive session, lasting six hours and four hands, starring on the SonarCar stage, alongside the well-attended bumper cars, the duo Scorpion Kings. It is the name under which Kabza de Small and DJ Maphoriza, South African DJs and producers and standard-bearers of Amapiano, hide. , a new style of electronic dance music that emerged in the townships which is causing a furore in Africa and beyond. Some warm and spatial sounds, of which we had another good sample, the previous day at the daytime Sónar, with the presence of the singer and dancer, also South African, Kamo Mphela, baptized as the Queen of the amapiano.