Primavera Sound 2021: Festival Gates Finally Open

Primavera Sound is one of the biggest European music festivals that takes place in Spain, Portugal and from September of 2021 in Los Angeles, the USA.

The festival specialized on new artists of the independent music scene and nowadays presents various music genres as indie, pop, rock and the most underground tendencies of dance and electronic music. The festival was awarded at nominations of "Highly commended", "The better music spectacle" and won prizes of independent music and many others.

Pixies, Arcade Fire, The National, Kendrick Lamar, James Blake, Enrique Morente, The White Stripes, LCD Soundsystem, Tindersticks, PJ Harvey, New Order, Spiritualized, The Cure, Bon Iver, Death Cab For Cutie, Iggy & The Stooges, De La Soul, Mazzy Star, Blur, Wu-Tang Clan, Phoenix, Radiohead, Animal Collective, Aphex Twin, Flying Lotus, Sigur Rós, The Jesus and Mary Chain and Tame Impala amongst many others have performed on its stages.

Primavera Pro is a hybrid edition of the main festival which includes conferences for professionals who work in the music industry, music management events and live concerts with new musicians of the local independent music scene.

All events correspond to current antiCovid measures for live events in the city. In 2021 it also takes part around the world: Ireland, South Korea, Argentina, Chile, Peru, Taiwan, Hungary, Italy, Poland.

Primavera Pro open air concerts in Barcelona

The Primavera Pro is renewed this 2021 combining the online format with the face-to-face format from the Center de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona from June 2 to 4 of this year.

Primavera Pro is made accessible on a global scale through streaming (as in its previous edition) and with a face-to-face concert stage at its classic headquarters of the Center for Contemporary Culture of Barcelona (CCCB). The restrictions generated by the pandemic have forced this 12th edition of the conferences for professionals in the music sector to take place in a hybrid way from June 2 to 4.

The programming, which will be announced soon, focuses on dialogue with streaming platforms, the incursion of non-expendable assets, the training of professionals and the links with the musical reality of other countries.

The Insumisas cycle, started in 2019 and renamed InsumisEs, also continues. This cycle - curated by the journalist Aïda Camprubí - aims to broaden the perspective towards transversal feminism, dealing with the representation and interconnections between the LGTBIQ + movements, the decolonization of events, the feminist and otherkin takeover of the online space and other current discourses such as the aestheticization of sex work or the appropriation of the concept of 'new masculinities' through artists of dissident genres.

Despite the fact that the 2021 edition of Primavera Sound Barcelona has been postponed to 2022, the Primavera Pro continues to stand due to its commitment to the present of the music industry, with the professional accreditations acquired for the 2020 and 2021 editions being valid.

Among the music bands at Primavera Pro were Twin, Sara Zozaya, Aitor Etxebarria, Yudi Saint X, Joina, Ariana Abecasis and many others. I’ve spent these three days bouncing between groups and taking in all of the last Catalan modern indie music tendencies. Here are the moments that stuck with us.

Twin

The first band from the emergent line-up you should definitely pay attention to is Twin, an electronic duo from Hidden Track Records, a leading Catalan local music indie label. The collective has just released its first EP. Twin’s music can be characterized as a slow experimental synthpop with tender female vocal and emotional lyrics. 

Ariana Abecasis

Ariana Abecasis is a Catalan singer, songwriter and a pianist with Argentinian roots. She has presented at Primavera Pro fresh songs from her last album. In her music you can hear a combination of non-combining from at first sight genres: latin pop rhythms, soft vocals mixed with minimalistic Rhye-alike piano notes; soul elements and trap voice reverb movements at the same time.

Sara Zozaya

Sara Zozaya is a young artist, singer-songwriter from the north of Spain that plays a fusion of folk, post-rock music with electronic incuts. What brings her music an authentic and mysterious taste in some point is the Basque language Sara sings in, that only exists in this region of Spain, being completely different and local music northern tradition influences.

Joina

Joina Canyet is an artist who became famous as a solo-pianist and whose current musical genres border between modern pop music, trap and hip-hop. Graduated in classical piano, Joina combines very diverse musical influences. Before starting her hip-hop career she performed at various classic music festivals and cycles throughout Catalonia. Joina has released two albums for the moment. She participated at major festivals such as the Strenes Festival, the Anòlia Festival, the Figueres Acoustics, the Summer Arts Festival, the Vic Live Music Market, and rooms like the Jamobree or Gas Light. She was awarded the youth prize after participating in Sona9 final in 2019.

 Primavera Pro generally is one of the stages of Primavera sound festival that has a focus on emergent talented collectives from around the world. Due to the cancelation of the main festival Primavera Pro was one of few live PS events this season.