sónar 2025 in barcelona unveils festival and DJ set lineups

Festival lineup during sónar 2025 in barcelona

Sónar 2025 in Barcelona releases its musical program for the festival, with the use of AI in music-making as Sónar+D’s theme. So far, there are a total of 117 live shows, DJ sets, and performances taking place across 10 stages in Barcelona between June 12th and 14th, 2025. The event also pays homage to the late Japanese composer Ryuichi Sakamoto with the performance of close collaborators and electronic music icons Alva Noto and Fennez. Just like in the previous year, the Barcelona festival has two venues, Sónar by Day in Fira Montjuïc and Sónar by Night in Fira Gran Via. The Sónar 2025 festival in Barcelona is part of the Sónar Week, which runs from June 10th to 15th.

For six days, collaborations, events, and co-productions also take place outside the two venues. The week starts with the 3rd edition of +RAIN Film Festival. It is the Artificial Intelligence-generated film festival co-organized by Sónar+D and the Universitat Pompeu Fabra. It continues with the OFFSónar parties at Poble Espanyol, where artists and labels in international club culture gather in one place. The official opening concert of Sónar takes place on June 12th at the Palau de la Música Catalana. The festival gears up to announce the installation for the SónarMies cycle at the Mies van der Rohe Pavilion in the next few weeks.

all images courtesy of Sónar

Afrobeat, UK rap and Andean polyrhythms in live performances

Between Sónar by Day and Sónar by Night during the Sónar 2025 festival in Barcelona, the lineup crosses different genres: Pa Salieu’s afrobeat and amapiano-inspired take on UK rap and drill, Sega Bodega’s blend of club and pop music, Dengue Dengue Dengue’s Andean polyrhythms, and triple Latin Grammy winner Nathy Peluso’s Club Gasa remix album. House and techno artists are present too. It includes Dixon’s dancefloor mastery, sublime house from Josh Caffé, Skee Mask b2b Actress, Alinka b2b Shaun J. Wright, and, for the first time, Brooklyn selectress Dee Diggs performing with ‘90s house legend Ultra Naté. Familiar faces return as well, including a collaboration between Matthew Herbert and multi-instrumentalist Momoko Gil as Herbert & Momoko.

Then, Boiler Room makes its debut at the festival with a stage at Sónar by Night on June 13th and 14th. Sónar by Night also sees the return of Sónar’s collaboration with Printworks London, with the co-curated SónarLab x Printworks. Here, a 6 x 10m vertical screen, horizontal lighting across the dance floor, and on-point programming come together for the festival celebration. The live sets also include performances by Plastikman, Arca, and Polo & Pan. There’s also Eric Prydz, CHROMA AV/DJ, Peggy Gou, Max Cooper, and Cora Novoa and Daito Manabe. Then, Four Tet, Vintage Culture, Helena Hauff and Barry Can’t Swim. Skrillex b2b Blawan and Armin van Buuren b2b Indira Paganotto, and Rone with the (LA)HORDE collective and the Ballet National de Marseille join the ensemble. There’s also Yerai Cortés and his ‘Guitarra Coral’, Maria Arnal, Tarta Relena, Samantha Hudson, and many more.

there are a total of 117 live shows and DJ sets between June 12th and 14th, 2025

Sónar+D looks into the use of AI in music

Sónar+D returns to the Sónar 2025 festival in Barcelona. The event aims to unveil the full program of conferences, presentations, workshops, and projects in the next few weeks. So far, the theme centers on the use of AI in making music. There’s ‘AI + Creativity’ which demonstrates the tools and unconventional creative approaches to AI. The series aims to explore the different uses of AI in a variety of technology, including in the music industry. The program’s theme focuses on ‘futuring the creative industries,’ which looks into the curation and creation future of the said fields by 2030. There’s another program called ‘Worlds to come.’ Here, the events discuss quantum computing, non-binary futurism, terraforming and interstellar travel, and more.

Then, the AI & Music powered by S+T+ARTS program returns for its third year at the Sónar 2025 festival in Barcelona. It showcases artistic projects, creative proposals, and scientific research focused on AI and musical creation. At the present time, Ville Haimala (half of the duo Amnesia Scanner) joins the lineup to present his new solo album ‘Hyporeal’. Other album presenters include British experimental musician and audiovisual artist patten (pseudonym of Damien Roach), as well as Madrid-based artist R-010 and vocalist Venerandi. The latter is set to demonstrate sound using digital neural networks and the human voice. There’s also Maria Arnal, who’s working on a project with more than 14,000 voices that are training an AI which will be integrated into the show.

Dengue Dengue Dengue | photo by Alejandro Loayza Grisi | masks by Twee Muizen – Edu Giradiscos

The Sónar 2025 festival in Barcelona is also part of the cooperative project TIMES (The Independent Movement for the Electronic Scenes), co-founded by the European Union. The initiative is set to gather 10 European festivals. They produce original new performances that combine music and visual arts, as well as co-curate a series of shows.

For the 2025 edition, Sónar has collaborated with Insomnia (Tromsø), Terraforma (Milan), Semibreve (Braga), Atonal (Berlin), and Unsound (Kraków). They present six co-curations and two artistic residencies. Together with Insomnia, Sónar announces Norwegian DJ Niilas. He brings a dreamy and melancholic twist to club music. He also joins the previously announced ABADIR with Arab-origin electronic music.

Project Area by Cecilia Diaz Betz

Alongside Terraforma, the festival in Barcelona features Catalan violinist Asia and the eclectic selector Paquita Gordon. Curated alongside Semibreve, Grand River and Abul Mogard perform their ambient-drone collaborative album In uno spazio immenso. As part of the project, the first two artistic residencies have been developed. The first has resulted in two audiovisual shows: Saint Abdullah, Eomac & Rebecca Salvadori present A Forbidden Distance, a collaboration between three electronic musicians and a filmmaker exploring the impact of migration on identity.

Then, Chris Watson & Izabela Dłużyk present Białowieża, a field recording work from the last primeval forest in Europe, Puszcza Białowiesża, on the Poland-Belarus border. Both projects have been co-created with the festivals Berlin Atonal, Semibreve, and Unsound. The second artistic residency for the TIMES at Sónar 2025 festival in Barcelona features Heith, James K, and Günseli Yalcinkaya. They present The Talk, an experimental project incorporating different formats such as discussion, audiovisual projection, and, of course, live performance.

Sónar+D looks into the use of AI in music during Sónar 2025 festival in Barcelona