sonar, so good (again)

Kittin is high. Kittin is climbing across the decks on all fours, purring 'Rippin Kittin' and there should be fireworks going off in the sky right now above SonarPub she's so hot. The world's finest goth-techno-leopard-print-diva has devised a super-sized laptop solo show this year, but Mademoiselle Caroline could probably play broken records (which, wonderfully, she's done at previous Sonars) and still have us eating from her paws. Favourites from 'Thee Glitz' days right up to the recent 'Batbox' are multiplied and mixed live into stadium-filling, acid house anthems then overladen with those irresistibly accented lyrics. The Sonar press department might have been hyping the 'female factor' on the lineup, but every single year, the very womanly Miss Kittin unofficially headlines the festival and its reputation rides on her tattooed shoulders.

Last year Hamburg label Dial released (whisper it) 'This Bliss', the debut album by emo-minimal deity Pantha du Prince and some divine decisionmaker has put him in the sublime sunrise-slot. His live set is all surface-sparse techno, teetering on the deep side of house. Whatever it's called, this is music to make you go limp, wobble a bit and not recover your senses until several days later. Each shift in tempo or silky new sound in 'Eisbaden' or 'Saturn Strobe' is an exploding star expanding across the galaxy. When 'Florac' builds up then breaks into a mind-blowing sitar-drone apocalypse, it levels this girl to a trembling wreck, crouching on the concrete floor.

By which time the sun's up for non-stop dj/producer/legend Ricardo Villalobos. Since it's Sonar and since he's closing proceedings (for now) he appears to have undergone some kind of photosynthetic transformation in the Barcelona heat. This morning he could be on the terrace at Space, spinning what sounds Balearic house and having a very non-serious-techno time of it, so that when the glittering curtain finally falls he's grinning, hands aloft behind the decks and we're already counting down the days to Sonar09.

more hot germans for plan b under the dizzying influence of red wine

MIT - Coda
Confession: I am a total Germanic-maniac. I don't drink lattes, I sup milchkaffees. I don't do London, ich liebe Berlin. So, naturally, I snoozed to brooding Cologne electro-minstrels MIT on my headphones in some Kreuzberg hotel and drifted into bliss.

MIT are one of those acts who think they have to pretend to be an indie band just because once upon a time they learned to play some instruments. However, thanks to the still-evolving indie-dance crossover legacy of DFA, they needn't worry - no one has to feign band-ness anymore. Instead of letting the frontman sing then, I wish they'd no lyrics at all - who needs 'songs'?

The finest tracks on Coda are the post-Jeans Team almost-instrumentals (Coda, Park and Deispiel) showcasing oi-techno which pulses with zippy beats worth at least one Soulwax edit and echoing with the masters of electroclash - a bit of T. Rauschmiere here, Kittin there and Tiga all over.

"let the bats in my head fly out"

1. bodywarmers: shudder. i was on the number 19 bus to oxford street on thursday and spied the man in the seat in front of me unashamedly wearing a dirty old bodywarmer. shame on him! they are the ugliest garments to ever curse a 'wardrobe'! especially when they've been washed loads of times and go all deflated. YUCK.
2.is the topshop vintage concession the biggest con on oxford street? my current shopping project priority is to find a smashing outfit for nick & phoebe's wedding and i haven't even started to look yet because january is not a month for shopping, nu-uh. anyway, they charge £80 for the kind of polyester granny-rags that no ebayer would have the gall to ask more than 99p (+ p&p) for! it's always been a ripoff, but just keeps getting more and more expensive - you'd have to be really lazy/rich/in object-lust to buy anything in there these days.
3. in much more important news, miss kittin has declared herself a feminist in the cover interview in this month's dj mag - KITTINLOVE. that quote in full:'I've realised that if you're a woman, especially if you're an artist, I think it means that you are a feminist, because you're here to talk about who you are. there is some stuff to talk about being a woman in this world. it's still better to be a man in society.//i was influenced by other powerful girls like electric indigo, who was always politically engaged, and i could never dare compare me to her, she's done such great work and i respect her so much for that. the same for peaches...they took it by the balls and i didn't, for some reason, i shied away from it. i have to be pretty humble with that because i was not more of an activist.'