I’m not a fan of retrospectives: it’s not very inclusive to harp on about a brilliant night/festival/set for too long, unless there’s some sort of constructive end to it. Go and see so-and-so here, etc.

BUT festivals like Sonar and Miami WMC are tastemakers and fixers for the rest of the year’s musical delights, and a precursor for the Summer’s selection in Ibiza, so I thought I’d let you know what tracks we heard out and about in Barcelona. Plus, it allows me to re-live it a little bit, so indulge me.

Particular highlights were the RA by Day party on Thursday, poolside on the roof of Hotel Diagonal, which started chilled in the sun, was moved up a level to fun old skool hip-hop and disco by Space Dimenson Controller, then brought to a sundown sweat-fest frenzy by Claude VonStroke. So many new tracks and highlights which we managed to ask him about later, but he warned us we’d have quite a wait, in particular for the release of Justin Martin and Ardalan’s epic follow-up to Mr Spock; LEZGO. I found a very small taster here – only 21 seconds but thank you to ‘Rainingcaps‘ and his dancing-while-filming brother.

A few other greats which you can get hold of now are Claude’s Take a Trip mix of Chilly Gonzales - I Am Europe, and J Phlip‘s new track with Claude under his Grizzl moniker for his vinyl imprint Krush Groov, BkupGrl, and of course my favourite, (another one I’ve been waiting patiently for) J Phlip’s OMG Remix of Russ Yallop‘s Rock Me, which is a bootleg and sadly not due for release (I think)… but you can hear it 12 minutes into this mix from March this year:
Claude VonStroke – March 2011 Tour Mix by Rainbow Venues

J.PHLIP & THE GRIZZL – BKUPGRL CLIP by j.phlip

Fun fun fun was the Jackmode party on Thursday night in a tennis club high in the hills overlooking the city (complete with a slide and see-saw) and it was nice to see Oliver $ drop his own Doin’ Ya Thang to a crowd very happy to try to sing/shout along.
Oliver $_Doin´ Ya Thang by oliverdollar

Zombie Disco Squad played some old skool classics including a great that we heard again dotted around parties in the week; the MK Dub of Jodeci’s Freek N’ You, from 1995.
Download: Jodeci – Freek N’ You (MK Dub)

All the beautiful people were at Ghoa Beach Club for the Hot Natured party all day on Friday. Dancing bodies filled the pool while we danced on ledges to the stealthy bass of Thugfucker’s Disco Gnome (Tale of Us Remix). Download here.

A-Trak at Sonar Night on Friday was ridiculous. His hands were moving so fast on the decks he looked like a smartly-dressed robot. He gave us a little taster of his new ‘mystery’ track Big Bad Wolf, which when it comes out on Fool’s Gold is going to be immense.

Great sets include Cosmin TRG followed by Tiger & Woods at Sonar Day on Saturday, and the legendary Rico Passerini has kindly uploaded the Cosmin set to Soundcloud for your delight:
Cosmin TRG Live @ Sonar Festival, Sonar Dôme, Barcelona – 2011 by R_co

We rounded the week off in fitting style with the Sunday parties, and a massive thanks to Culprit vs Leftroom for good sunny times on the roof at Hotel Catalonia in the day, then Get Physical for putting on a beach party at Mac Arena Mar through to 3am. Just enough time to pack and get to the airport for a Monday morning flight home (those crazy enough to go to work on Monday). So for now, we put Sonar to bed for another year, and content ourselves with hastily booking some flights to Ibiza, stalking producers until we get our grubby mitts on the tunes we heard, and re-living some of the joy at 5 Years of Leftroom (with Room 2 hosted by Hot Natured) at Fabric on 2 July. See you there.