This year’s Sónar by Night, set at a venue that looks like a maze of various club spaces, managed to meet the expectations of a huge music enthusiasts mass from all over the world. The experimental yet crowd-pleasing festival brought some of the biggest names in the underground electronic music scene but left enough space for the visitors to discover something they might have never heard before.
After DJ Shadow set off the atmosphere at Friday night, Jon Hopkins played one of the most colorful introduction sets before the German trio Moderat dazzled the crowd with an outstanding audiovisual show and their contemporary electronic music. Nicolas Jaar took over the headline sash and rocked the SonarPub stage with an unexpected intense techno set in which he incorporated his latest work ‘Sirens’. The Belgian drummers that go by the name of Soulwax, pleased the crowd with some aggressive yet emotional beats. The first lady of techno, Nina Kraviz, returned to Sonar for the 3rd time, with a renowned musical taste which has taken the audience by surprise. The Iranian-American DJ and producer, Dubfire, closed the night with a fiercely dangerous techno set. Friday’s biggest success were, however, Louie Vega and Kenny Gonzalez, the fabulous duo that goes by the name of Masters at Work. The New Yorkers who have been producing dance music together since 1990 played an outstanding six-hour set that left no one standing still.
New Zealand’s Fat Freddy’s Drop mixed house, dub, funk and soul at SonarPub stage and heated up the atmosphere Saturday night. Justice, the famous French duo, presented their newly released album ‘Woman’ with flashing lights and synthesizer notes that created a state of total dance euphoria. Pascal Arbez aka Vitalic and Sweden’s dance music star – Eric Prydz continued in the same tone. The legendary hip-hop group De La Soul, presented their first album in ten years and played their biggest hits while the crowd jumped in front of the stage. Carl Craig’s fusion of electronic and classical music played in the form of his latest ambitious project ‘Versus’, lit the SonarLab stage on fire and was evaluated as one of the top performances of the entire festival. Seth Troxler b2b Tiga played an intense six-hour set that only true ravers managed to handle. The absolute hit of the night were, however, Hunee b2b Daphni, who played a high-quality house and dance music set while the sunrise was hitting the venue. Together with the American house and disco goddess, The Black Madonna, they closed this amazing event.
The 24th edition of the festival accompanied by a number of outstanding Off Week parties all over the city managed to satisfy over 120 000 of dancing visitors that just can’t wait for its 25th edition.
Text :Nika Bogdanić
