‘No sooner have we looked to northwestern Spain and to next month’s Primavera Sound than we’re back in Barcelona – at least musically speaking – as we turn to next month’s Sónar. The one and indeed only International Festival of Advanced Music and New Media Art this year commemorates its 20th anniversary, and to celebrate it boasts a line up of utmost refinement pooled from the spheres of electronica and organica alike. As with our every Fest Bests feature, we were unable to include everyone we’re restively awaiting over in Cataluña and as such the likes of Major Lazer & Mykki Blanco & Liars & Bat For Lashes have, alas, fallen by the wayside although below be our presupposed highlights for the city-spanning, premium lager-swilling throwdown…’
Posts tagged Barcelona.
‘By this time next week, we’ll already have (albeit only ephemerally) relocated to Barcelona for day upon day of decadent overindulgence and musical extravagance, for this year’s edition of the quintessential left field festival, Primavera Sound, is now upon us. I can practically taste the Estrella Heineken fizzling away at the rear of my palette and, truth be known, the way this British springtime’s currently panning, out I’m almost relishing the prospect of inevitable sunburn. Almost… Storms are currently forecast for the week though that can’t be right, right..? Anyhow – as is so often our wont with these sorts of aestival shenanigans, below can be found a rundown of who we’re itching to get over and see most impatiently, as we tick through our Fest Bests in a purely alphabetical order. That said list neglects to comprise our beloved likes of Daniel Johnston, Parquet Courts, Allah-Las, Sean Nicholas Savage, etcetera ad infinitum attests to the strength of this edition’s ineffable billing, and there’s even an opportunity to witness whether or not The Knife can rectify the heinous wrongs of last week. Just don’t pin too much hope on that one, and instead affix all optimism to the following…’
Fest Bests: Primavera Sound 2013.
‘Less an expressively monomaniacal recording and more another of Cox’ egomaniacal escapades, sounds as though the Georgians are still to orchestrate that obligatorily seismic shift in Pundt’s favour…’
Dots & Dashes review Deerhunter’s misdiagnosed Monomania.
‘Last night a DJ saved my life. It was all within the context of a damn nebulous dream I ought add, in which Daphni restrainedly slew Primavera Sound. I guess it was a foggy illusion prompted by this belated onset of springtime, though it made me long to loll about Barça with a caña in one hand and slacker excellence in both ears posthaste.
Philadelphian brother/ sister setup Great Thunder shan’t be over in Cataluña next month – or at least I’m not aware of them being in an in any way professional capacity – though they distil that keen aesthetic of the festival down into 20-odd minutes over the duration of their luminously enlightening Strange Kicks EP. They do so diligently, with an inspiratory disregard for that same professionalism aforementioned which makes for a pretty invigorating listen with regard to the scatterbrained nonchalance they call upon. I mean there can be no better denouement than a lo-fi rethink of Mazzy Star’s Fade Into You replete with skittish drum machines and languid slide guitar, though it’s where the recording conversely begins that has us hooked as we’ll surely be to the old Estrella Damm in but a few short, and perhaps even sun-dappled weeks. It’s an opener entitled Kees, which is sung by the K of the enigmatically named K and K with the XX chromosomes, and clatters dizzily like a dilapidated apartment sat inertly beside a steadily buckling railroad. There’s even what sounds a fairly thinly veiled tribute to Blind Melon’s No Rain in the closing stages, just to nail on the instant infatuation. There’s no thunder without lightning, and the sibs may yet set 2013 aflame…’
