LIVING

One of the strongest and most innovative scenes in Barcelona is arguably electronic music in all its incarnations. DJs of rank abound—El Guincho, for example—while bands like Delorean are starting to gain some real reputation in the US and UK. But it’s the sub-genres where it’s really happening. One movement where Barcelona has excelled internationally is ‘chiptune’: music created with the sound chip of a video game console. Artists have even created an association, microBCN, that represents bands such as Meneo and Yes, Robot. Both have performed at Blip, the world’s biggest chiptune festival, in New York City.

Not all of Barcelona’s cutting-edge electronic artists are so easily classified. Institut Fatima, a duo made up of two German residents of Barcelona, are particularly experimental in their approach. Creating music spontaneously, with the use of cameras that recognise objects and movements, they don’t mind when something goes terribly wrong on stage, quite the contrary. “In Spain, people love mistakes. That’s what life is like,” said Carsten Galle, one component of the duo. 

Others in this species include Internet2, whose music can sound like a satirical and surrealistic take on kid’s television series. Mendetz call their highly danceable music “techno rock”. Burbuja sound a bit like Björk. And Barcelona Bakalao are actually trying to revive rave and look cool while doing it.

However, a problem for most of these bands, and an obstacle for the creation of more, continues to be the lack of venues. “There are no cheap rehearsal studios and no small concert venues where those bands can play,” said González. There are some exceptions, however. The cultural space Miscelänea has hosted pretty much all of the bands mentioned above, and keeps its finger firmly on the pulse when it comes to planning concerts. The ‘Club del Fumador’, set up by Lucky Strike, has developed as an unlikely venue for emerging bands.  

A genre that has traditionally been so strong in Barcelona that they’ve got a good number of concert and rehearsal venues is hardcore, noise, punk and all their hairy, leather-clad offspring. Editor of the Spanish edition of Vice magazine, Toni Querol and one staff member together form the noise ensemble Sons of Bronson. Querol also plays in the sludge-doom band Lord of Bukkake, together with a member of Cuzo, an instrumental psychedelic rock band that has received a lot of attention lately. And Bèstia Ferida is made up of one band member of trance group Les Aus and one of the folk rock outfit Veracruz. And even darker members of that genre, like Patatas fritas por el culo or Foscor, are finding more listeners.