Another followed. Black Affair, Steve Mason's new outfit arrived with little fanfare but their low key electropop was a definite personal highlight of the festival, this mix indicative of influences probably explains why. Unfortunately my ability to get into Sunn O))) and Clarke was a victim of either my poor timekeeping or a lack of competition on the bill for the majority's attention, something which was a recurrent theme of the daytime Sonar gigs. Haswell and Hecker's alien attack on the senses distracted for a while but the lure of a few beers on the beach grew stronger. 
Again relaxed timekeeping meant we missed the Raster Signal, but The Beastie Boys extended set of greatest hits and more, and another fantastic Cornelius a/v performance made up for some of the misgivings about the daytime programming. Skream was tearing it up at Sonar Lab as we left, the dubstep virus really taking hold of Sonar this year. 
Last year we caught Various Production off Sonar at Sidecar and they were promoted to Sonar Complex this time round, adding three live vocalists and rinsing the soundsystem for all it was worth, another live highlight despite a somewhat disappointing album late last year. Honourable mention goes to the Israeli deejay Kalbata spinning breaks in the RedBullLounge and overcoming the heavy branding of the space to get the crowd a jigging. Back in the Dome the minimal stylings of Modern Love were going down well with the crowd and I caught the end of a stirling set by Claro Intellecto. If I could have had a peseta for every time a highhat appearance was cheered I'd be a wealthy man, is this European enthusiasm or is most minimal really so bereft of highlights? 
On to check out Wolf Eyes where an extra from Texas Chainsaw Massacre was playing a log, intensely, and earplugs were necessary. Saturday night meant restaurant and alfresco beers. Sunday dissolved into Monday via beach party and an unexpected dalliance with a lunatic as the sun went down on Sonar for another year. Bang for buck-wise Sonar is slipping, but as thoughts turn to alternatives - and many European cities want a piece of the action - it may prove a tough act to follow.
Flickr pics here.
Some mooching about in London took us to a couple of exhibitions that in theory should have chimed with the core Testcard aesthetic; the ICA’s exploration of the 1980s British underground, Secret Public and the V&A’s decidedly populist Kylie. In reality I found something bogus about both. I think in the case of The Secret Public this was through the organisers’ positioning of the exhibition as representing the ‘last outburst of radical experimentation before the onslaught of consumerism established an environment in which 'alternative' culture could immediately be co-opted into the mainstream’. This seems to me to be romantic at best and actually, just plain wrong. The stuff that’s represented in The Secret Public’ formed the core content for what was the highpoint of the British style magazine era and was covered widely elsewhere at the time in broadsheet Sunday Supplements and the burgeoning ‘yoof’ TV sector. So we got photographs by Wolfgang Tillmans and Jon Savage, video footage of the dancer Michael Clark and the designers Body Map, Leigh Bowery looking ‘freaky’ blah, blah, blah.- in other words a parade of usual suspects that the Face and ID seemed to cover every bloody month. All very nice, but to suggest that the Blitz kids and a few related art projects were the last gasp of authentic underground creativity unsullied by contact with the mainstream (erm… anyone heard of Visage, Boy George or watched any advertising or fashion shows from the period?) is silly.
Kylie sets out to hit you with the wonder and spectacle of Ms Minogue’s glittering career but actually ended up (to me at least) as a deconstruction of the artificiality and tawdriness of modern pop culture. The main bulk of the exhibition was taken up by the display of costumes from various videos, photo shoots and live performances. And there lies the rub. Once you get up close to clothes made to be viewed from fifty yards off in some enormodome (or as part of a heavily processed and beautifully lit music video) you realise how cheap, tacky and badly made they are. They might be designed by world famous Italians but they’re invariably made in some horrible man-made fibres and look like they’ve been cut by gibbons suffering from heroin withdrawal. Added to this, despite baring her name, the exhibition leaves you with absolutely no sense of who Kylie is or what she is supposed to stand for. The whole thing is about process: the photographers she’s worked with, how many pairs of tights are used on a tour, which record label she was signed to, where her stylist bought her hotpants etc. As a result Kylie herself comes across as a strange characterless mannequin who only exists when summoned to life through a lens…. which may well be true.
