For those unfamiliar, Sónar is a three-day festival dedicated to forward-thinking electronic music. Journalist Ricard Robles and visual artists Enric Palau and Sergio Caballero founded the event in 1994, calling it the Festival of Advanced Music and Multimedia Art, with performances by Laurent Garnier, Sven Väth and more.
The Barcelona festival is split into Sónar by Day and Sónar by Night, the latter of which helped increase the scope of the festival by switching to a larger venue, allowing the event to grow from 18,000 visitors in 1996 to 53,000 in 2000. It has since drawn electronic music artists from all corners of the world. Though it is mostly underground dance, atypical performers include The Roots, Pet Shop Boys, Goldfrapp, Jurassic 5 and more.
This year’s Sónar will take place June 16–18, with an opening lecture from Brian Eno, one of the most important record producers in history (David Bowie’s Berlin Trilogy) and an early pioneer in electronic and ambient music. Like every year, the performance lineup reads like a who’s who of electronic music, ranging from live techno duo Kölsch to jungle legend Congo Natty to Swedish rapper Yung Lean. One of the most anticipated shows will be from the godfather of electronic music, Jean-Michel Jarre, performing Friday, June 17.
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