Wrapping Up With A Room Full of Fuzz: Sónar Day 3

Day three of Sónar Barcelona 2016 was a quiet affair for this reporter. With only one artist hailing from Latin America, Saturday was a welcome opportunity to wind down before leaving town early Sunday.

Malard is the musical brainchild of Colombian-born Sebastián De Los Ríos, currently based in Barcelona studying sound art and audio installation. His skills and interest in the artistic side of performance was on full display today in the Redbull-sponsored Dome, where his set was a great mix of cerebral and sensory.

Sending a guitar signal to a laptop and then messing mightily with the sound, Malard is a project that suited the mood of a slightly washed out Saturday crowd perfectly. Ambient and drone influences are clear, as the minimal input from the strings gets stretched out into impossible new shapes made up of white noise and echoes of melody.

Malard’s stage presence is minimal, in keeping with the musical aesthetic: content to simply lead the sound in organic directions, he layers fuzz and phasing noise in an unstructured and unhurried fashion. There’s strong pulses of bass, rising to fill the hall and resonating somewhere just behind the ears, at the base of where the skull joins the spine.

The departing effect is to leave a very appreciative, if visibly dazed, crowd to applaud and try to process at the close of the set, as the final note fades.

Malard’s performance concludes Sounds and Colours featured coverage of Latin American and Latin influenced artists at Sónar 2016. But, but, buuuuuuut, follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and, as always, keep an eye on the website.

We should have a full-length Nicola Cruz interview conducted at Sónar up soon, as well as photos and video from the last three days of festivities!

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