Sonar flips the script to give a musical history lesson

Barcelona's electronic music festival threw up a few surprises this year. Chic's vintage disco tunes and the appearance of an influential reggae poet were among them, writes Jim Carroll.

It was the moment when Sonar turned into the biggest girly disco in Catalonia. On paper, the appearance of disco pioneers Chic at Barcelona's annual gathering of electronic music-makers and multi-media activists just did not make sense.

After all, Sonar has built its global reputation on out-there sounds, genre-splitting acts, left-field tomfoolery and Jeff Mills. That's the way it has been since Sonar opened its doors for business back in 1994.

By contrast, Chic are about vintage disco tunes which have more sparkle than a bottle of cava. That was the story when Nile Rodgers and the late Bernard Edwards recorded Dance Dance Dance in 1977 and it hasn't changed much since.

Chic and Sonar? It really should not have worked.

But as people reared on house and techno get lost in the music played by Nile Rodgers and Chic's hired hands, it all gradually makes sense. After all, you can easily trace a line from Chic's sleek mirrorball screamers right through to anything which comes off house's various production lines today. Whether today's producers will produce a vintage like Le Freak and Good Times is a matter for another day.

As the white-suited pros onstage roll out the tunes, the audience are - literally, in some parts of the vast warehouse - dancing around their handbags. It's certainly not a sight you would expect to encounter at Sonar.

But this was the year when the festival threw up some surprises. While Sonar could have simply rehashed the same marquee names as before, banking on the electronic music herd gathering in the Catalan sun regardless of who was onstage, there seems to have been a conscious effort to flip the script a little.

The appearance of reggae poet Linton Kwesi Johnson, for instance, was another commendable move. An influential if somewhat overlooked elder statesman, Johnson turned in a powerhouse appearance with the Denis Bovell Dub Band.

The blend of Johnson's forthright, fired-up, occasionally angry rhymes and the bittersweet bop and swing of Bovell's band produced an intoxicating brew.

Earlier that day, Johnson spoke at length at a press conference about who and what influenced his work. His "very long answer to a very short question" took in everything from work songs he picked up from his grandparents and playground chants to the Bible, poets like Sonia Sanchez and Aimé Césaire and early reggae DJs such as Big Youth and U-Roy.

"I'm too old to have new influences," he said in response to a question about more recent turn-ons. "I haven't heard anything inspiring in the past 10 years. I certainly don't have time to listen to a rapper talking about the size of his penis or disrespecting women."

It's fairly certain, then, that Johnson would have been on safe ground with what Sonar's hip-hop selections had to say for themselves. Drawn largely from the alternative, politically-correct ranks, it was the likes of Rahzel, DJ Shadow, DJ Krush, Digable Planets and Ugly Duckling who led the way.

While there was a lot to admire in the rugged jazziness of Digable Planets, few of the others produced moments to remember. In particular, Shadow's debuting of The Hyphy Movement, a largely underwhelming clique of San Francisco MCs, was the most disappointing of all. Lacking the oomph of his own work and the wit of his previous collaboration on the Quannum Project, the Hyphy guys seem, on this appearance anyway, to be unfortunately well named.

But Sonar is something of a jukebox when it comes to styles and sounds. If disco, reggae and hip-hop didn't move you, there was lashings and lashings of house and techno which might work wonders instead.

From micro-house and electrohouse to genres which are still frantically looking around for a name to call their own, it sounded dizzy, giddy and sometimes downright daft.

Naturally, some pulled it off. Many were impressed by the fierce, tough electronica which Pole's Stefan Betke and friends are now thumping out, a good skip and glitch away from his previous work.

Warp artist Jimmy Edgar also produced an impressive set, awash with pin-sharp Detroit funk and techy curves, while the hugely likable Hot Chip continue to show that you can easily do one thing on record (fey, soft and ticklish) and quite another thing live (robotic, synthy rave-pop for the masses) using the same songs.

A long-standing Sonar favourite, Matthew Herbert was here this year to plug his new album, Scale. When it comes to off-the-beaten-track pop with a funky heart, few can match what Herbert has at his disposal. Alison Goldfrapp, though, may well come close, her vampy electronic pop scoring high for panache, attitude and guile. It may be aimed squarely at mainstream delectations, but Goldfrapp and collaborator Will Gregory still have Herbert-like musical kinks to admire.

Even acts who weren't necessarily digging beats found space to call their own. The soft-shoed whispers of British folkies Tunng, the instrumental, post-hardcore rumpus of Barca's 12welve and Vancouver native Jeremy Shaw's arty, melancholic sounds as Circlesquare all showed other sides to Sonar's sonic remit.

As did Señor Coconut, a bunch of gentlemen in accountants' suits playing cha-cha-cha versions of tunes by Kraftwerk and Sade. It made sense, of a kind.

Away from the music, the focus for this year's multi-media grandstanding was on how artists are using and manipulating always-on digital devices. If you thought you had seen everything that you could do with mobile phones, digital music players, text messaging, GPS receivers and wireless internet connections, some people had news for you.

While it did seem that some proposals got the green light simply for featuring a mobile phone, iPod and a concept like geocaching or public sound gardens, those projects which dug a little deeper produced some interesting results.

Blast Theory's imaginative Day of the Figurines invited people to become citizens of a fictitious city and respond to text messages about various events as they unfolded, showing how collective reactions to urban ennui can sometimes create communities. Proving that music can be generated from the strangest sources, German artist Gen Brand's gPod player turned the orbital paths of some 1,000 satellites into sounds and frequencies.

There were also some fascinating showcases about how some artists are using and abusing new user-friendly web technologies. Be it by hacking into innovations like the fascinating Google Earth satellite mapping or twisting those ubiquitous MySpace self-portraits, such artists as Jason Freeman, Olia Lialina, Rick Silva and Steve Coast provide fresh perspectives about mediums which are fast becoming commonplace.

Yet there's little chance that Sonar's multi-media sideshows will ever eclipse the main attractions. For three days and nights in Barcelona, Sonar is about showing off all shapes, sizes and sides of electronic music.

The trick for the organisers is to keep reworking the wheel so that the festival remains both interesting and challenging. This year, they did so by bringing Chic and Linton Kwesi Johnson to Catalonia to give some magnificent history lessons. Sonar's next trick in this regard will be one to watch.

[ www.sonar.es ]