The answer to such imagined rhetoric would be ja klar, or sí claro, or heck yep or so it'd appear: he's in his element and it elevates the leaden mood of us all. Firm yet languid enough to never become overtly attention-grabbing, these be idyllic sonics for those in shades and collared shirts simmering in the afternoon sun. However as the SónarVillage gradually packs out you sense that Jaar's dabbling in this cool pool on the side is an unknown entity; let alone quantity. They who nod so enthusiastically and bob comparably emphatically enquire: "¿Sabes que son?" as the Roundhouse-ramming wunderkind on every radar flies under many; operating incognito for only a moment. Kudos must of course also go to Dave Harrington who manipulates his Telecaster in a way that it may excrete anything and everything from Mariachi march, to surges of house and back to reverb-soused Leone soundtrack. As massive, massively understated swarms of treble burst from every seam the duo depart to loops which in turn leave us longing for more. For albeit only Jaar's flipside, Darkside feels like the genuine article, devoid of those monosyllabic groans and the nondescript beat-bashing with creative libertad levered perhaps by moniker distracting from man.
But to return to focus, from the straight-up East Coast roll of The Next Movement, to an incendiary rollock 'n' roll through The Fire, or a Break You Off that's velvety as honeyed cacao it's an effortlessly sensational show. Damon "Tuba Gooding Jr." Bryson's sousaphone blurts proffer arguably the bestest bass heard all week and, as he and bassist Mark Kelley jive and chase tails as they and their respective instruments run rings around one another, the boon of the wireless is suitably evinced at this so-called 'Festival of Advanced Music and Multimedia Art'. However it's the enviably gifted, soi-disant "string assassin" "Captain" Kirk Douglas who steadily grows into the quintessence of the greatness aforesaid, at one point raising his Les Paul skywards as though some divine sacrifice offered up to Bolan, Biggie, Yauch et cetera ad infinitum to one handedly slip out the solo of the summer.
Progressively vocal and with it inevitably focal, his talents astound (and perhaps to an ever more aspirational degree, given the slight lack of ambition elsewhere) as does this concise hip hop history of sorts; an erudite hip hopera if you will in which almost as many reworks – or at least intimations toward – as originals feature. Glimpses of Bo Diddley's Who Do You Love and Donna Summers' Love To Love You Baby are refracted through a boisterous take on The Meters' Handclapping Song; a gently inopportune Jungle Boogie insertion as aural tributes to informers and influentials dead or alive mirror their vocal intro. Testimonies aside, if Black Thought may be a self-professed "man of many hats" then his vocal capabilities are somewhat more one-dimensional whilst riffage from Sweet Child O' Mine – never previously heard bolstered by sousaphone, albeit brass scarcely audible over prominent Gibson crunch – feels all but entirely incongruous. And, tighter than a taut rope conjoining glistening yacht to Barça coastline or some comparably flimsy Cataluñan comparison born of perilous sleep deprivation, they're arguably almost too polished. Yet then to release any tensity and scuff 'em up slightly they unleash a ChestnuTT-less The Seed (2.0). And it changes everything as it sows a newfound, infallible zest in this most fertile of shows. It's an irrefutably magical conclusion and, to all extensive purposes, it validates Black Thought's booming of "You have been messin' with the best; the incredible Roots."
"Buenas noches Barcelona!" Al Doyle then vociferates and indeed any noche inclusive of a Hot Chip show could never be anything but as they again deliver a relentless thrill that's calculated yet ne'er careless. Maintaining that quintessentially British awk alt. appeal, a tszujed up Boy From School is swiftly followed up by what is, live, something of a soulful bruiser in Don't Deny Your Heart. Peppered with material from newbie In Our Heads, most comparatively unknown cuts are swiftly one-two'd with a hit bigger than La Barceloneta: like leisurely beach volleyball contenders they tease as they tee up belters with a typically gurgly Night And Day (coincidentally, in gaudy boiler suit, Alexis Taylor for once does vaguely resemble "a rapper" – or at least an Intergalactic Beastie Boy); with the disco shimmy to How Do You Do? that tonight sounds veritably enorme; even a once-around-the-block on Fleetwood Mac's Everywhere.
Thus as with Metronomy before them, they're discernibly up for this one – synthesist Owen Clarke in particular. And although the hammy vocals and steel pans of sentimental "love song" One Life Stand resound a little infelicitously on this 'Noche of ultimate depravation, as lights flicker, fringes flick and stomachs are jumbled from immoderate movement you recall why you fell quite so helplessly in love with this malarkey known as music in the first place. Hot Chip hath returned with renewed vim and although Joe Goddard is tonight lamentably peripheral (he's plausibly already exhausted enough having put in a shift with side project The 2 Bears just a few small hours ago, even if me may take the vocal lead on the ebullient pop trash of I Feel Better that's tonight protracted by a considerably less inevitable "Ayia Napa"-worthy breakdown) although it's the singalong synths and general unintelligibility of Flutes that reverberate most vividly. A strobe-infused Ready For The Floor – inaugurated by a sort of Nordic intro – is the latest in what rapidly comes to resemble an uncontainable slew of essential single and that's of course what Hold On continues to harness in four-minute format. It's all too prematurely curtailed, and they're gone; these gawky spacemen with retinas glued "to the stars". By and large, they're still hitting them.
While this particular pairing may be so gay in the best, most beguiling and above all complimentary manner (to employ the term as was initially intended), Azari & III are equally engaging when the duo take much required breathers to dry down sweat-drenched bods. For like every great workout tape, it's the music that gets muscles initially flexing and in this case it's the infectious house of producers Dinamo Azari and Alixander III that forebodes tomorrow's crippling lactic acid buildup. The meaty hunk that is Manhooker is, for instance, bludgeoned into some emotive and above all distinctly sanguine electronica. Essentially however, although Christian Farley and Alphonse Lanza purvey a guru-like propensity for hacking up bloody wonderful electro-house it's the shapes pulled by their openly acrobatic vocalists that stick in mind. From Aztec convulsion through terrifying futuro flop, they're tonight stars in umpteen unnaturally enlarged pupils and with a voice as immediate and hopefully ever to be considered 'classic' as that of Starving Yet Full, to resort to crassness, the quartet dick on closest contemporaries Hercules and Love Affair.
Shattered and shit-faced, as The Black Block echoes hellaciously back off opposite office block (a little perturbingly it's that of Spanish babycare company Prenatal) that's it for another Sónar, and it's been yet another to have gone off without a hitch. Over the predestined amble through the predestined fuck ton of debris however, the first thought as you stagger ungainly on yet another hurriedly emptied can of Estrella Damm is that were the world to end tonight amid this ever apocalyptic, monolithic nothingness this may not be the best note for it to violently implode upon. And then another thought emerges from what feels like some downright irreparable ruination: is Sónar, as the festival's ostentatiously and oft offensively sardonic staple James Murphy once indolently garbled, losing its edge?
