Playground magazine

At the press conference, the Sónar organisers said that this year they expected 80,000 people to attend the event, and for now, those numbers seem to be correct: the first day was completely sold out (the CCCB was rammed, which hasn't always been the case on the Thursday at previous editions), plus Sónar By Day sold out on both Friday and Saturday. And we still have to see what the attendance will be like on Friday and Saturday night.

Musically, the balance is very positive: New Order settled their historic debt with Sónar with their opening concert, and on the CCCB stages (Hall, Complex, Dome, and Village) we witnessed wild DJs, fun gigs and a feast of fat bass lines and irregular melodies. From DJ Spinn & DJ Rashad to Flying Lotus, from Mostly Robot to Trust, from Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs to Thundercat, this is how we experienced the first day of Sónar 2012, already on its way to an epic conclusion.

It's truly great to be welcomed to this edition of Sónar with a slap in the face like this. In  SónarHall, as the rays of daylight filtered through, Barcelona producer Mario G. Ferrer taught us a lesson in noise with his MacBook and a Roland MC-909. He sounded much more abrasive live than on his records: listen, for example, to his evocative “Amplia Grey” (Lovethechaos, 2011). Live, Ferrer added layers of deafening noise to the field recordings and incidental music used on the album, without interfering with the sometimes delicate core of his music. Have you ever been in a fire? The sound of the flames devouring the surroundings must sound something like this. Dani Relats

It's no news that taking a stage on the first day of Sónar, at 1 in the afternoon, is no easy task. Firstly, because you never know how large the audience will be, nor what it'll be like. Secondly, because there are certain kinds of music that just don't go down well at that time of day. That wasn't the case, however, with El_Txef_A. His deep-house, and, most of all, the more pop oriented songs from his debut album, had the potential to fit the sunny SónarVillage stage like a glove. Which is what happened: tracks like “Breath” and “Broken Bridges” got the punters dancing on the artificial grass. Aitor Etxebarría proved to be pragmatic; the first half hour of his set was dubby, slowly adding more rhythmic elements and bass, to finish with some unreleased and danceable material. Discreet but effective, in spite of the sometimes complicated sonic circumstances on stage. Mónica Franco

Eltron John is another name on a long list of ambiguous DJs and musicians experimental music has given us. On stage, the Polish artist was sporting a friendly schoolgirl hairdo, and a terrible black dress that showed enough to see he has no breasts, but a bit of hair on his chest. The ambiguity, however, was already there. Transvestite or actor? We saw him off-stage later, in 'normal' dress, and he looked like Nathan Fake, though while he was playing his crunchy house, we couldn't help but think of a Slavic version with savage sense of humour of the tremendous DJ Sprinkles, the dance alias of Terre Thaemlitz. But he had the crowd moving like a perfect student party. His looks were a bit gruesome, but his music was good. Mario G. Sinde

Jeremiah Jae, the youngest pup of the ones Flying Lotus brought with him for the Brainfeeder showcase, proved somewhat inexperienced. Or maybe the expectations were just too high. One needs to know what they’re doing, and a lot of presence, for the huge stage that is SónarVillage. Jae, however, was alone with his laptop and a microphone; which is a good setup for a small venue or club, but just didn't cut it yesterday. Preceded by a rep for manufacturing delirious beats and possessing a dragging and taciturn flow, he started with much more orthodox, old school productions, rushing through his rhymes. It wasn't until halfway through his set that he let go of the mic and started to feel comfortable, producing abstract rhythms that were much darker and unnerving (even including some rave-like breaks). Too spontaneous, or - something which boils down to the same conclusion - simply unprepared for the occasion. MF

With the heavy task of starting the Brainfeeder showcase, Lapalux found himself in front of a half-full SónarVillage (you could see it was Thursday and the locals still had to work). Armed with a laptop and a Midi controller (and with FlyLo appearing every now and then to pass the smokes), the Briton offered a set of nebulous beats and glitchy psychedelia in the vein of his latest EP on the California label. A recipe based on granular textures and faded evolutions, which became a tad dull, maybe because of the abuse of the delay when twisting the tracks. Paradoxically, the most exciting moments came with sidesteps like Danny Brown's a capella, and fragments of Puff Daddy's “I'll Be Missing You”. Even so, it all sounded a little bit too homogeneous, and it never really took off. Franc Sayol

So if I understood what was happening correctly, the king of Catalonia and overcrowding conspired to make getting into Daedelus’ Archimedes show a bit of a pain. Some moans, shoving and patience paid off though and I finally got to see the dandy of electronica in front of his new ‘body’. Archimedes is an impressive, audio-visual show, and like Amon Tobin’s ISAM which is also playing tomorrow night, it’s an immersive experience. Daedelus squashes down the energy of rave and hardcore dance music – which resonates with people here easily – and gives it a visual representation in the shape of his mirror machine, not far-off a Hollywood visual effect at times. Steampunk came to mind, seeing Daedelus in his usual dandy outfit, while at times this machine seemed to appear behind him in strange physical shapes – as if the music was coming alive. The way EMN and Daedelus have managed to integrate the visual element beyond mere eye candy, but into something that’s closely linked to the music and works with it, gives me faith that there is still plenty of room to explore in this musical world.

Archimedes is the next logical evolution of Daedelus’ live shows up till now. He’s gotten harder for sure, yet he still manages to capture the audience in a way that’s more engaging than most performers of his kind. All around me punks (sans dogs), ravers young and old and even a guy on crutches were dancing and responding in their own ways. However 30 or so minutes after coming to life, Archimedes was brought down by what was either a power cut or just the system being unable to handle it. As the room’s noise readjusted to only the audience and the monitors, people were cheering and clapping wildly. They’d done their job.  Laurent Fintoni

Kutmah's role yesterday afternoon during the Brainfeeder showcase could have gone two ways: he could have been ignored completely, or he could have become one of the heroes of the day. Kutmah was what we know as the in-between DJ. He came on several times, between the gigs of his label mates, with 15 to 30 minutes each time to keep the spirit high with his selection. The man nailed it. Not only did he prove to be an excellent and versatile selector (archaic cumbia, fun disco and funk, yesterday's and today's hip-hop, reggae, and then some), he's also technically gifted, with agile mixes that allowed him to play anything he wanted in the little time he had at his disposal. He even had time to be the speaker, introducing his label mates' gigs. While he had already won our hearts with “Free Kutmah”, yesterday he turned us into devotees. MF

The mood was already 100% Sónar when the Japanese walked on stage: an eclectically dressed audience that was well up there, like a Star Wars cantina. His music was received well: robust beats, somewhat crunchy, and melodies that sounded like timeless IDM (Plaid, maybe), but with an Oriental touch and, in general, with a preference for the high-pitched registers. His music could easily fit the Brainfeeder sounds on the neighbouring stage. As his live set went on, the rhythms, which started with a hip-hop cadence, began speeding up and became more tribal. At the end, with the wealth of drums sounding, we were reminded of the “Akira” soundtrack. One to watch. DR

The image of Diana, a dreadlocked girl who became a volunteer in the most curious and puzzling experiment of the day, with her head full of cables and protected by a military-like helmet, was impressive and somewhat scary. Alongside her, Japanese agitator Masaki Batoh, best known as a member of Ghost, was playing with toys, instruments and weird sounds (Buddhist chants, ocarinas, unrecognisable noises), in order to give some zen meaning to his “Brain Pulse Music” project, which makes rhythms and music out of brain waves. In 2012, zen equates to putting the loss of your team in the Champions League semi-finals into perspective, but Batoh went a little bit further than that, which is praiseworthy. There will be people who say this is just more nonsense, a new episode in the rise of white-collar criminals setting up camp in the crowded realm of experimental music, but this search by the Japanese creator seemed sincere and convinced of its own value. It was a curious and at times attractive exercise of neuronal noise with the excuse of being conceptual, and with some good artistic results. David Broc

Walking out of a cave like Sonar Hall to go see Thundercat play the Sonar Village stage was a nice contrast. Sunlight and the warm weather made it the perfect setting for the bass player to step up and deliver a refreshing, organic break from what ended up being - for me anyway - a day spent listening to electronic and dance music. The band around him were solid and they delivered a mix of some of the most recognisable album tracks with what sounded like deep, longer jams – the audience seemingly subdued during those moments until a crescendo allowed for them to respond. Brainfeeder’s growth with musicians such as him is an interesting counterpoint to the primarily digitally made music that’s also found on the label.

As a friend said halfway through “it’s almost like jazz for the kids”: generalising a little, but also giving a new generation a chance to understand where the music it likes so much partly comes from. Plus he’s a mean bass player, and it’s nice to see a bass player as a front man. He’s the perfect front man for the LA based cross-over that has been going on over the last few years, between sound system culture and beats (and of which Brainfeeder is a perfect representation). Bass is the place. LF