‘Pools’ has been designed to help the Sónar 2022 audience navigate a lineup that features over 100 performances by 150 artists. 

Each Pool corresponds to a certain style or mood (strictly genre-fluid), which is linked to others via the artists they have in common, showing how links, themes and hidden narratives course through the veins of the Barcelona edition of the festival this year. 

So Unmissable Electronic Music, featuring some of the biggest names on the lineup from The Chemical Brothers to Moderat and The Blessed Madonna, flows into Underground Superstars, which includes Helena Hauff and Overmono. They appear alongside their comrades and compatriots in Let them hear techno (with Anfisa Letyago plus big-hitters like Richie Hawtin and Charlotte de Witte) and It’s a UK ting (featuring Critical Soundsystem’s drum’n’bass showcase, rap superstar AJ Tracey and rising star DJ Jyoty). 

Slow and low features the down-tempo - yet still danceable - artists on the lineup, with amapiano superstars Kabza De Small x DJ Maphorisa (Scorpion Kings) and Kamo Mphela alongside the laidback latin rhythms of DJ Python and ETM. The latter also finds himself in Rhythm is a dancer, which features the festival’s most percussive performers from Batu to Venus X, as well as DJ Scotch Egg’s collaborative and corrosive rap project Scotch Rolex ft MC Yallah & Lord Spikeheart. The spirit of punk lives on in this unique trio, as it does in the other acts included in Punks with synthesisers: from LSDXOXO and Louisahhh’s live bands to Amnesia Scanner’s apocalyptic AV show. 

Experimentation is still at the heart of the Sónar project, as the Outer reaches demonstrates: Martin Messier, Eli Keszler and Hamill Industries & Kiani Del Valle. While there’s no shortage of spectacular shows at Sónar, there are those that promise to be Performances without parallel: whether it’s queer icon Samantha Hudson’s ‘Liquidacion Totale Por Cierre’, Lady Shaka’s non-stop party or Arca’s debut at Sónar by Night. The Venezualan experimental icon is also just one of many Charismatic voices, alongside serpentwithfeet, Eartheater, Lyra Pramuk and local stars Tarta Relena.