The Sónar festival is one of the biggest international festivals of advanced music and new media art. For the common bloke that means the art of electronic music, the big world of genres that have been advancing the artform of music since electricity and computers came along. Since Sónar was first held in Barcelona in 1994 it has traveled around the world, eventually washing up to the shores of Iceland in 2013. Now a year later the stages of Harpa Concert Hall were lit yet again.
At Sónar you will see the whole spectrum of new, interesting and popular electro music. Also, local artists are given a chance to perform and introduce their music to a bigger audiences than before. Sónar 2014 featured it all; pretty big names worldwide like Major Lazer (US), growing names like Bonobo (UK) and local names like GusGus (IS) and Hjaltalin (IS). What unites the Sónar artists is that they are advancing the artform of music and new media art.
Sónar´s thursday and the first night of the festival was a night of the locals. Icelandic artists like Hjaltalin´s Högni Egilsson (IS) solo performance and Fura (IS), a brand new collaboration including members of the more known electro band Bloodgroup (IS) all played that night. And of course GusGus (IS), Iceland´s biggest electro band, closed that evening. Fura was energetic and the singer sometimes reminded me of Björk. Högni Egilsson or HE, mixed different styles of music, all from dramatic discordant string arrangements from classical/film-score piano´s to heavy electric beats under acoustic guitar. His music was quite interesting and progressive. It´s music that needs time to digest in your heart. In the spirit of Sónar, GusGus closed the night playing mostly new stuff and doing what they do best, making people dance.
Sónar´s friday night featured pretty big and fresh artists like Bonobo (UK) and Jon Hopkins (UK). It started out with Starwalker (IS/FR), a new collaboration of Barði Jóhannsson from the icelandic band BangGang, and Jean-Benoît Dunckel, the other half of the french electro duo Air. This band was like Air on steroids. It was powerful; a bass, two electric guitars and electric drumkit thundering away at times under strange and dreamy sounds spelled out from Dunckel´s keys and synths. A really good start. The next bomb was Bonobo. In the full Silfurberg Hall he started on his synths and controllers with two other synth players and a live drummer. A nice visual artwork flowed behind as they laid down their laid-back electro tones. Before you knew Bonobo and his crew grabbed a bass, electric guitars and a saxophone, jamming with their tunes. In addition, this girl walked and sang few songs beautifully. People in the hall made their mark also. On my right I had some kind of new wave hippies with closed eyes the whole time, dancing so naturally. In front of me I had this beautiful hipster girl dancing while smoking the whole show, and on my left I had a way too drunk icelandic girl crashing into other guests almost making a girl fight out of it. Fun! The danish electro band When Saints Go machine were like a rock band turned electric. Their show was really powerful with a crazy drummer and a crazy singer with all kinds of effects on his voice. Like Bonobo they blended together the electro band experience with the live band experience, making a powerful show with interesting sound and interesting music.
After Bonobo and When Saints I discovered that they had turned the car park under Harpa into a big warehouse rave with DJ´s playing heavy techno there. Pretty awesome. At midnight Berndsen (IS) moved people back to the eighties with his joyful and minimalistic, eighties-influenced electro. A really fun show with icelandic fans singing along with every song. Friday night ended with Jon Hopkins (UK) in The Silfurberg Hall. His DJ-set was all about beat and dancing, a really nice and diverse electro with the one aim of making everybody in the stuffed hall dance. Hopkins had a great visual artwork behind him making his rave even more exotic in the classical chambers of Harpa Concert Hall.
Although Saturday night featured the biggest international artists, warming up was in the hands of the locals. Icelandic artists like Ojba Rasta, Sísí Ey, Vök, Fm Belfast and Hjaltalín all played that night. Ojba Rasta laid their solid reggae down accompained with synths, delays, and a guest rapper. Sísí Ey incarnated that “Sónar”-vibe you´re looking for with their catchy yet still innovative electro performed by one guy and three sisters singing, all dressed up funky with funky hairdoes creating a really mystical atmosphere. Super cool. Vök filled out the little chamber Kaldalón showing the attention they´re getting these days. This band plays kind of atmospheric and dark chill-out electro accompained with saxophone and electric guitar. They won Iceland´s biggest band competition in 2013. Fm Belfast ripped the roof of the Silfurberg Hall in Harpa. An electric discoband with four singers in the front and two drummers in the back making everybody dance with their catchy tunes. The female vocalist´s dress was a visual show of lights shining in the dark of the Silfurberg hall and the male singers pulled off great falsettos. One of the best acts of the festival.
Meanwhile the Silfurberg Hall was the place to party at the Northern lights Hall was a place for heavier and more complex music. Hjaltalin laid down their slow and heavy beats of their latest album Enter 4. Högni the singer with his long blond hair in red lights preached his words in such a way that I felt as if some nordic mythological sungod had arrived to end the long winter of the north or something. They were like an electric fairytale, really nice. In the same hall later that night, James Holden´s (UK) performance was the best discovery of the festival for me. His show was more than a concert, it was an experience of another dimension. Very long songs played by James, a jazzy drummer and a saxaphone player, playing chord progressions over and over in front of visual artworks. This was like prog-electro, very interesting. Down in the Car Park the abandoned-factory rave was still going strong with Diplo (US), the man behind Major Lazer. Here people came to dance in a car park rave of hardcore techno, dubstep and all the genres you can find in the dance electro family.
Now, only the big acts were left; Major Lazer and Trentemøller (DK). They gave the guests what they came for: a chance to dance a months worth of workout at the gym and to see and hear the music of tomorrow. Both artists were playing at the same time so I wandered back and forth. I wished I could have left my body at Major Lazer´s show and my mind at Trentemøller´s. I thought Trentemøller´s music was more interesting. Like Bonobo he blended together his electro tunes with drums, bass and lots of surf-rock sounding guitar. There was a lot of rock and punk to his electro, especially his last song. Major Lazer, on the other hand, had no guitars, but they had the crowd of the completely packed Silfurberg Hall. They made everybody move, sing along and take their shirts off, poured champagne over the crowd and picked up girls to the stage to twerk for the rest of us. That kind of party.
Thus ended Sónar 2014 way out here in the north. This festival is a great choice for people interested in the icelandic music scene as well as what´s generally new and fresh in electro music. Plus the icelandic winter weather was spectacular this dark weekend in february. Clear skies of winter sun in the day and northern lights in the night. What a weekend!
Hrafnkell Már Einarsson and Stefán Atli Jakobsson
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