Sonar fest: turn up, tune in, veg out

FOR ONE stall-holder in Barcelona's magnificent Mercat de la Boqueria, it must have been a very good day for business. The Vegetable Orchestra were in town and they needed, well, lots of vegetables for their Sonar performance.

There may be others who make a living bashing auburgines together, blowing on carrots and drilling potatoes in the name of creating experimental sounds, but we've yet to meet them. No doubt a Sonar slot also awaits such an ensemble should they ever emerge from the kitchen, and we will also spend no more than two-and-a- half minutes marvelling at their wares before moving swiftly along.

After a dozen years, such sights and sounds have become the norm at the International Festival of Advanced Music and Multimedia Art. This year, some 90,000 early adopters, innovators, curious onlookers and sundry others merged on the Mediterranean city to see and hear what the Sonar fuss was all about.

Showcasing electronic music and art's future shapes with live acts, DJs, film screenings, concerts, exhibits, installations and happenings, Sonar's strength is that it joins together previously unconnected dots and make sense of the most nonsensical of musical notions. Previous festivals have signalled the arrival of folktronica and indietronica and the resurgence of electro-pop, and such uncanny prescience keeps punters and pundits returning annually to discover what might be coming down the line.

This year, it seemed to be the older hands who were making the loudest noises. The Durutti Column's Vini Reilly has certainly experienced many ups and downs over a long, eventful career, but there's still a spell- binding, shimmering magic to be found amidst his emotional, echo-laden guitarwork.

Dusseldorf's Mouse on Mars have always displayed plenty of live gumption, yet this show was quite a significant step on for them and their sound. Plugging new album Radical Connector, there's a strong sense throughout of an act revelling in the power and panache of electronic diversity. Fellow Germans To Rococo Rot have been producing sumptuous soundscapes for over a decade and there's little sign of a lull in that strike rate, to judge by new clicks and cuts premiered at Sonar.

Perhaps the biggest surprise of the entire beano was provided by the Chemical Brothers, promoting their yes-it-is-good album, Push the Button. Then again, the combination of a band punching out top drawer hits to a capacity audience in a venue best suited to exhibiting farm machinery, with green lasers going off and bumper cars whirring around in the back of the hall, will always be a winner.

But it wasn't just the veterans who shone. Diplo restored Discotheque's faith in the art of the DJ, the Yank's bodypopping mix of ragga, baile funk, fruity hip-hop and strange '80s hits turning up the heat. There was also much to admire in Danish act Efterklang's slow-burning, atmospheric emo-electronica, while Khonner, the 18-year-old Canadian whizzkid, gave due notice that his Handwriting debut was no fluke with a perfectly judged set of light, fluttering, sometimes ethereal melodies.

Both pushing highly acclaimed current albums, Roisin Murphy and Jamie Lidell were also Sonar standouts. Murphy, the only Irish act on the bill, is quickly and sure-footedly spinning away from her housey Moloko days towards a more soulful, brassier sound and vision, which reflects the handiwork of producer Matthew Herbert on the Ruby Blue album.

Lidell is a long-standing Sonar favourite; his new album, Multiply, is astonishing in its funky ambition. While the show could do with more pizzazz (and some of the confidence which is in abundance on his album), it does whet the appetite for what might well come next if and when he throws off the cabaret cloak.

For Sonar itself, what comes next is anyone's guess. Since opening its doors in 1994, it has done all it set out to do and much, much more besides. Indeed, the number of fringe events and anti-Sonar protests tell their own tale about its popularity. As long as the event continues to take giant steps in terms of diversity and variety, the masses should continue to pay their electronic homage to Catalonia.