Senior culture marketer, brand strategist, relationships/brand partnerships lead, editorial and storytelling specialist, event producer and music journalist.

Conor McTernan

As Sónar celebrated its 2024 edition, we caught up with Lee Gamble, Candela Capitán, Olof Dreijer, Diva Cruz and more to explore why over 154,000 ravers journey to Barcelona each June.

What comes to mind when you think of Barcelona? That it’s a popular travel destination, perhaps, or a culturally rich city in Spain that overlooks the Mediterranean Sea, or that it’s renowned for its varied architecture. The diverse population of its dense urban sprawl, coupled with its location on the northeast coast of the Iberian peninsula, make the perfect home for Sónar – one of Europe's leading electronic music festivals that attracts over 154,000 visitors each year.

Sónar-goers are veteran ravers, many of whom have made the yearly pilgrimage to the event, near-religiously since it started 31 years ago. Long before techno tourism boomed in popularity, and electronic music festivals became a deciding factor on travel calendars, Sónar had consistently drawn swathes of music and technology fans to the Catalan capital due to its foundational programming; the curation juxtaposing global club sounds with a staunch commitment to the peripheries of the scene.

As electronic music evolves, venture capitalism and dominating live music giants increasingly call the shots globally, leading to hegemonic lineups. An escalation in travel costs and artist fees has perpetuated a Eurocentric scene. How can festivals break out of this, and use their platform to promote and connect hyperlocal microscenes around the world?

, a new European Union-backed initiative based on the movement of electronic music scenes, funding avant-garde curation and unlikely artist collaborations between cities with a world view that focuses specifically on diversity issues within the sector, movement of migrant people and reconceptualising borders. TIMES is a cohort of 10 European festivals including Berlin Atonal, Creative Broadcast, Elevate, Insomnia, Le Guess Who?, Nuits sonores, Reworks, Semibreve, Sónar, Terraforma, Unsound – the majority of which are independent festivals that share a common thread in their curation. Individually, they emphasise the importance of grassroots communities, with some steering away from more traditional locations in their respective cities and choosing, instead, to repurpose abandoned spaces.

To understand more of this expansive three-year project, we travelled to Sónar to speak with some of the participating artists – Olof Dreijer, Diva Cruz, Lee Gamble, Candela Capitán, Toro Collective, to name a few – and participating curators to get their unique perspectives on connecting the dots between hyperlocal microscenes and future-proofing festival culture through meaningful collaborations between international travel destinations.

Stockholm-based creatives Olof Dreijer (former frontman of The Knife) and Colombian-Swedish percussionist and vocalist Diva Cruz debuted their hybrid live show at Sónar in Istanbul and Barcelona this year, mixing ancestral drumming with vocals and DJing. The show was co-curated by Sónar and Reworks as part of TIMES. Together, the duo explore rhythmically diverse sounds and promote diversity through joy and activism.

Olof Dreijer: Good food, rhythm and we are both left-wing; we share opinions of many things that should change in society.

Diva Cruz: I play live with Olof's sister (Fever Ray) so that's how we met. We've known and been working together for a long time.

You're both based in Sweden and here we are in Barcelona. What are the major differences or similarities between these cultures?

OD: Stockholm is very remote. There is a small scene but it's very concentrated. It's roughly the same amount of people, but Barcelona is much more urban. It's cold in Stockholm and not much going on in the streets – so I'm happy to come here! Barcelona also has a much bigger diaspora.

What is the musical spark or catalyst where you two collaborate? Polyrhythms seem to be a big focus.

OD: We both like Brazilian music a lot. Diva comes from a salsa background, so we mix different kinds of salsa and samba grooves in response.

Diva, as a percussionist, what’s your ideal BPM to drum or shake to? and which instruments have you got with you today?

DC: 126-126 is nice! We both have timpanis, tambourines and chocalhos from Brazil.

OD: I also have tamborims from Brazil, and Diva has her Colombian maracas.

What scenes, communities or emerging music genres have you been paying attention to?

OD: Brazillian Funk. South African gqom music and there is so much good house music done by people not from the West.

What makes a festival performance stand out as memorable for you?

OD: The fact that the toilets say women/non-binary and men/non-binary, that's an amazing step forward. It was not like this before in the electronic music scene. You can see that they care.

DC: It's also amazing to see female sound engineers.

DC: Colibri! I saw these birds in the window of my grandmother's home when I was young. You don't realise how much you miss the sounds and colours of home when you are far away!

Ikram Bouloum is the lead curator of Sónar by Day. Part of Sónar's festival programming team of five curators, she is responsible for the musical programming and happenings at Sónar's daytime festival at Fira Montjuic. Bouloum cares most about local diversity and connecting the dots between what's happening internationally.

Ikram, what is your guiding purpose with this year’s festival programme, and how has this changed from previous editions?

Ikram Bouloum: For us (as a team of five) we are trying to curate the most diverse kind of lineup, trying to represent different microscenes from the local and national scope but also trying to connect that with what is happening internationally. One of these narratives is choreography, melting disciplines and putting music in a new place; another one is AI and music, how these new tools create new paths.

I saw the Team Rolfes show last night which blew my mind. Tell me a bit about that?

IB: When I met them two years ago at CTM Festival in Berlin, I felt like they represented the future. They melt all their knowledge to make a show happen. They have an educational way of making a visual performance work with different technologies and they worked with Lil Mariko for our show. They are super connected to the deconstructed club world. They are also part of the Club Cringe collective showcase we will have at Sónar tonight.

You’re also an artist yourself. How do you strike a balance between the dual sides of creativity?

IB: Working at a festival gives me the knowledge to understand how the bigger picture works, taking in the work and needs of artists and putting reality by my side. Then for my artistic practice, having oversight of technical production, or how the artists start with a project at Sónar, gives me perspective and learnings about different processes on making a show happen. That's pure inspiration. It feels super connected. It's amazing.

What is it about cross-cultural and multidisciplinary collaboration that works so well at city festivals?

IB: To be working with like-minded people at nine other festivals, each with its context, is a privilege and an opportunity to share ideas, create together and figure out how to build a solid structure for the cultural scene. Together we can make projects happen that wouldn't be possible otherwise. It's a three-year project that will run co-curated projects between the festivals until 2027.

Can you describe the process of selecting and pairing the artists for these co-commissioned shows?

IB: The political side of the project is important because it talks about cultural borders and what they represent, physically and conceptually, in 2024. The first one is focused on the Polish border. And we will have a couple of artists working on that side.

A lot of long Zoom calls. It's a lot of work over many months, but having so many curators working together is a privilege. We also like to build connections with artists and be there with them to explain the process behind the shows we are creating, and the connections that exist within the lineup. It's like storytelling.