Am now over my initial 'first-ever-blog-whilst-not-at home' excitement. And the fine Chinese (plus Blixa) were, sadly, somewhat of a let-down. White were alright on the night. In patches, anyhow. But there was no let-off - of 47 Fireworks - at the end of that particular piece, despite them being very evident on the recorded version. I suspect that this may be something to do with fire regulations, but still. All-in-all, still the best music we've sampled, thus far.

We had managed to miss FM3's Buddah Machine performance prior to this. Although I did purchase a Machine (see picture) of my own from the Record Fair. This is now rather anachronistic and inaptly -named. Hardly any record-companies were in evidence, now that the music world has finally gone (mostly) digital. The stands this year are predominated by promoters and clothing companies, so perhaps 'Lifestyle Fair' would be a more fitting handle? I went for the classic white Buddah Machine (a little, transistor radio-like plastic box, that plays a short loop when you switch it on), 'to match myPod', BEFORE I saw the olive green pressing that they also had. Sadly, another €20 for this one too was pushing the boat out a little too far, despite the lovely little lapel badge and stickers that came with. Haven't dared open the packaging yet. And not sure that I ever will.

SonarMatica was, as ever, a delight. For me, anyhow. Martin's scepticism, when consulted later, was in full effect. But there was lots to see and do, from silver balloons which moved as you approached, to a simplified, gallery version of Philip K. Dick's scramble suit from A Scanner Darkly, which took the faces of the (small) crowd (there were three of us when I joined in) assembled in front of a screen and shifted them onto someone beside you. Philip Worthington's Shadow Monsters and Tool's Life by minim++ were personal favourites. Lots of fun to play with, throwing up surprise results as the viewer interacted, and difficult to do justice to in a few words.

I also, in my haste, forgot to give an honourable mention to one of the shorts we'd seen earlier in the day. Luz Lenta, directed by Dionis Escorza, was gorgeously shot, and beautifully crafted, depicting light revealing and erasing people, objects and colours across spaces, with what looked like a mixture of real-time film and stop animation. Pure visual poetry.

But back to the music. FM3 took to the stage, amidst accusations (not unfounded) from Martin of prog rock, or even emo tendencies. Blixa eventually made it to (the back of) the stage a few minutes into the piece, looking very dapper in a dark suit. He then proceeded to shout a lot, through various effects, his voice - at times - a low rumble. Having seen Neubauten in their Haus Der Luge period, and not knowing what to expect, I was a little disappointed. A little more theatre, at least. We promptly left the building, and headed to SonarComplex.

Big mistake. Complex was full of noise and (largely) empty of people. This was Jazzfinger, apparently the heirs to Zoviet*France's noise throne. Although this seems to be more to do with the fact that a) they're from Newcastle and b) sit on the stage to do whatever it is they do. Bowing and scraping at guitars, mainly. We gave them our very own jazz finger(s) in double quick time, and headed back to the apartment. Harsh? They were, so I do feel justified in giving them so little of my time.

As suggested in the previous post, Thursday night was downtime, before the main events (Beastie Boys and Dizzee Rascal tonight; Devo and - showing my local AND hip hop sympathies - Mala Rodrîguez on Saturday) to follow. So, an evening of beers, going through my many pictures from the day and a late night amble, and ramble - dodging beer and body sellers with equal vehemence - along La Rambla to the port. Oh, and another attempt by Martin at some filming. The camera has now been set up for another 'Nothing Happened Today', but arriving at the harbour with a dead camera battery meant no 'lights on water' footage, save the little that he managed to capture on his smaller stills unit.

Richard, for Funkturm