Saturday 20/06/09 Sonar Festival 2009, Day Three @ Barcelona, Spain

A man hurriedly pulled a woman off the floor and out of the audience in SonarDome, she was Mexican chart-topper Natalia Lafourcade. Quickly, it was easy to understand her success with such striking songs. It was just guitar, keyboard, her little girl lost to brassy woman voice and a sparingly-used effects pedal.

Breakbot stretched pop music even further, taking it to the nth degree with the records he played. Slapped bass, padded drums, eighties synth and crooning, wanton, shameless stuff. His Stardust 'Music sounds better with you' edit somehow sounded even more M.O.R. than the original. It all had everyone grinning in the sunshine. His Metronomy 'A thing for me' remix was the piece de resistance- a lounge/ chamber-pop bastard monster.

Pau Riba and Mil Simonis walked through the Complex like surrealist pied pipers. Everyone crowded round this merry band of transvestites in cardboard wings and eyes tatooed onto a forehead. It was a pretty lullaby until they reached the stage, brought to a crashing end by two drummers, launching the garage-rock. There was an oompah-loompah type song and a heart-warming folk tune that finished on a rousing rock-out with all the band hollering. Lovely.   

Animal Collective kicked off with 'My Girls' and the echoes of Jamie Principle's 'Your Love' in the keyboard-line sounded right for SonarClub. They didn't drop a beat as on record, so it was plaintive, rather than celebratory. The band's harmonies were undeniably lovely, but the sound was too dense for the venue size. Rather than staying behind their electrical equipment, the lively old multiple-drumming set-up would've been more appropriate.      

Fever Ray made full use of the Pub soundsystem. The bass was shaking your writers rib-cage and tickling his inner-ear. Lot's of people put fingers in ears. It was mainly torch-song paced, with pulsing lanterns on stage to match. Intense.

Famously particular about sound quality, Crystal Castles weren't happy at the Pub, abandoning the stage, then returning. The drums sounded too human, compared to the gloriously cold synths and angry robot vocals of Alice Glass. She was especially 4real. A study in passive-aggression, one minute flicking her fag-end into the crowd, flinging herself in not long after. The drums finally sounded right, the electro-disco perfected on 'Courtship Dating' and Glass got into the crowd again. As the security pulled her back, she jabbed him a few times, then threw drums at him. Feisty. Security closed in, lights out, curtains drawn, game over.            

Back in Club, Moderat got a massive sound suitable for the room, earthquake-heavy bass with emotive synth-lines. Sometimes the beat was techno, sometimes dubstep. With this computer music, Apparat's guitar-playing sounded impressively natural. The only problem was a beautiful woman complaining about Deadmau5 being delayed, even chanting his name while Moderat played. Then she put her tongue in the writer's ear. Despite this one-woman good cop, bad cop, Moderat were far better than moderate.