Gallery: RBMA x Sónar Festival 2016

We’re proud to take our partnership with Barcelona’s Sónar Festival into its 12th consecutive year in 2016, presenting an all-star cast of Academy alumni and affiliates on our annual SonarDôme stage from June 16th-18th. Sónar’s ethos of searching out eclectic, future-leaning talent has always jibed perfectly with the Academy’s vision. This year, we’re presenting a lineup of visionary artists hailing from all over the world, with recent participants of the 17th edition of the Red Bull Music Academy in Paris at its core.

RBMA Radio is broadcasting all performances to a global audience in its entirety. Listen live here.

To kick things off on Thursday, four alumni of the recent Paris Academy took the stage at SonarDôme. Following a garage and 2-step-heavy opening set by LiL JaBBA, Switzerland’s bass maverick Lemonick and Denmark’s house connoisseur Kasper Marott took the crowd further down the rabbit hole, before their fellow alumna Sevdaliza gave a taste of her magnetic charm as a performer. Spanish cloud rap crooner John Grvy, Turkish psychedelic outfit Insanlar and British 2008 alumnus Jamie Woon added their own grooves to the lineup, before house duo Tuff City Kids closed out Day 1 with a euphoric assault on their drum machines.

Check out photos from Thursday below, shot by our photographers Dan Medhurst, Maria Louceiro and Pere Masramon, and stay tuned for more impressions from the upcoming days.

Friday’s early afternoon hours were marked by a rare Barcelona occurrence – rain. The brief downpours gave the Sónar Festival crowd all the more reason to stay inside and witness the variety of acts on our SonarDôme stage. Paris Academy alumni Sobrenadar, Silkersoft, Sapphire Slows and Hiele (alongside Spanish hardware geek JackWasFaster) got the day’s program off to an eclectic start, before we headed more concertedly into different shades of house and techno.

Pulsinger & Irl brought their synth magic and Jacob Korn laid down a stomping DJ set, already filling the room with people in anticipation of the day’s major highlights: Underground Resistance presented their live band project, Timeline, providing one of the most delightful SonarDôme experiences in recent memory with their jazz-inflected take on their classic Detroit techno sound. Long-standing Academy friend and Running Back label boss Gerd Janson then shut things down in fine style.

The final day of this year’s Sónar Festival was once again not all fun in the sun, as a few showers punctuated the Saturday program. Luckily we had a smorgasbord of musical treats being served up on the SonarDôme stage, including a mesmerizing tour de force by Lafawndah, an eclectic, soulful vinyl set by Sassy J, a high-octane performance by French four-piece Club Cheval, and a heady hardware freakout by Magic Mountain High, AKA Move D and Juju & Jordash, to close out this year’s program.

Thanks for everything, Sónar, and see you next year!