Still, we reach, and meet, on a plane of shared experience: in an emotion, or a scent, or instrumental stretch of reflection. The “you” I sing to when I sing along is someone distinct, but what they represent reverberates at the same cadence as it does for Jeff.

An artist releases a track; thus, we are given a path.

In return, we devote our minutes, open our throats, and allow their expression to take hold of us.

______________________________________________________________________

“You gave me more to live for,

more than you’ll ever know.”

Last Goodbye by Jeff Buckley

______________________________________________________________________

Possession primarily takes place through mouthing.

It is a powerful act to say something out loud—especially words that are not your own. I feel it when I am schizo-signing to myself on the metro. Deep in a self-indulgent mood, feeding it with sad music.

When I hit play, an atmosphere is created. Bringing my headphones over my ears, cradling my head, the air changes. It thickens with intimacy between me and the voices that serenade. It makes me go all detached in my gaze, feeling the soft pulse of a universal, human pain.

We whisper a secret world between us— as long as no one is reading my lips.

What I decide to select sets the tone of the moment. I am the disc jockey of my consciousness.

Rap music is for when I need a healthy dose of egotism. It is a form of poetry that isn’t flowery and, quite inversely, vulgar— but still impactful all the same. The excess of the lyrics and the quickness of the beats make me feel ambitious in a slightly delusional way. It produces a contact high of self-confidence, an in-your-face flippancy that reminds me, fleetingly, bluntly, who the fuck I am.

______________________________________________________________________

“That touch your soul music,

I get you higher, grab your lighter fluid.”

Jukebox Joints by A$AP Rocky

______________________________________________________________________

Pop music does the same, though in a distinctly feminine way. More sensual, while still just as grandiose. Less explicit, but no less suggestive.

I feel it when a Britney song comes on, and I am seized by the urge to strut down the street to the tempo of Breathe on Me. In an instant, before the first bridge, already more aware of my hips, of the way my hair grazes my exposed waist, swaying with them.

That same sensation took the stage on Day 2 of Primavera Sound, where I watched Addison Rae, Amaarae, and Pink Panthress embody the full spectrum of female sexuality at its finest.

Addison, the actress, singer, dancer and suspected yogi, created a spectacle of herself. Her (and her team, who she credited lovingly) created a universe onstage that was unabashedly sexy, sparkly, and deeply feminine in a way that didn’t alienate anyone watching— even the straight men I spoke to, who claimed they never listened to her music, but were impressed by her stage presence nonetheless.

Her movement was youthful, sultry, and invisibly supported by the years of technique she has behind her: deep back bends, smooth splits, heart opening motions. She was having just as much fun as she hoped her audience was.

Amaarae, on the other hand, wanted the crowd to rage. She wanted chaos and praise, standing in the spotlight with her two arms extended, fingers beckoning for louder applause.

Meanwhile, Pink Pantheress was cheeky. Uniquely English, even in her outfit choices. A little awkward, but committed to the part she was playing, her confidence growing every second she kept faking it.

On Day 3, Adrienne Lenker performed with her band, Big Thief. Her self-presentation contrasted with all three of the girls from the day before— and arguably, every other set I had seen. I wrote a Substack note about it the day of:

“Addison Rae at Primavera Sound was basically just a manifestation ritual for me… and Big Thief was a prayer.”

Everything about the performance was… ugly: uncoordinated outfits, the band’s name scribbled in black marker, with messy handwriting, onto the cover of the kick-drum.

Adrienne’s face, projected up onto the large stage-height screen, showed visible signs of strain. You could see it just as much as you could hear it. Skin heating up all red as she shreds it on the electric, clearly trying to exorcize some ferocious emotion out of herself, up on stage. Brave.

I walked away with more notes than photos of their set— and not all of them were even necessarily related to the performance.

______________________________________________________________________

“So let gravity be my sculptor, let the wind do my hair.

Let me dance in front of people without a care.

Let me be naked alone with nobody there.”

Incomprehensible by Big Thief

______________________________________________________________________

If genres of music represent the multitudes that exist within us, then festivals lay it out on a map, and then write it in bold letters on a line-up.

Addison Rae’s performance was scheduled just before The Cure, on the adjacent stage. That meant fans of the latter, queuing up early, found themselves stuck watching her set, whether they wanted to or not.

The interaction between both fanbases was predictably tense: old dudes sneered in puritanical disgust, while girls and gays blew vape smoke in their face.

Meanwhile, many of us, in the crowd, with our feet on the ground, were intentionally present for both acts— already in a good spot up front from Addison’s set. Eager to transmute our energies from one genre to another.

We stood, sang along, and moved as proof of our capacity to hold the many moods and truths that make up being human: modernity and nostalgia, glittery pop and gothic rock.

How easy it was to go from being cheerful to wistful, between both artists and also within the length of their individual sets themselves: from Headphones On to Summer Forever, or Just like Heaven to Pictures of You.

______________________________________________________________________

“Strange as angels

Dancing in the deepest oceans.”

Just Like Heaven by The Cure

______________________________________________________________________

On stage, entire worlds are created; reflections of what exists within. Contradiction is a given. Body, identity, and song exist layered and contingent, vast, tangled, astringent.

On festival grounds, we get to wander around all wide-eyed, hearing the sounds trail off behind us as we exit universes and enter new ones— carried by the breeze of the Mediterranean sea, taken from stage to stage.

The crowd contributes to this, too: inflatable palm trees and dolphin totems raised into the sunset-sky during Rusowsky, spacey gazes and euphoric hands waving during The xx’s set, the smell of sweat and weed for Fakemink. Crowds become meeting points not just for common interests, but for a particular aesthetic, emotion, or aspect of identity.

______________________________________________________________________

“Cambiaste de tiempo y de amor

Y de música y de ideas.”

Viernes, 3 am by Seru Giran

______________________________________________________________________

The same impulse exists intimately, away from the bass in our chests and into our bedrooms, where we curate playlists and send each other songs; a music library might as well be a self-portrait.

A playlist is a place where emotions can be consolidated, moments in time can be immortalized, vibes can be juxtaposed in a way that weirdly works.

When we hit shuffle, we witness this: how fluid our tastes can be, how naturally we move between emotional states.

Sometimes, we are led there by a song we forgot we saved—from tears to twerking in the mirror. And then suddenly, we are implicated in the magical possibility of teleportation: from eras in time to moments in our own lives.

This happens when I hear Bad Bunny’s album Un Verano Sin Ti and am immediately taken back to the first summer I spent in Miami after moving to the UK. Back in my hometown, going to the beach with my best friend, driving with the sunroof down and hitting the bong.

Or Sessa’s Flor do Real: the song that makes me recall the three months I spent at the beginning of the year back in my birth country, Brazil.

Or Yung Lean’s album Jonatan which makes me feel both warmed and devastated, returned to the cold floor of my first Barcelona apartment, reacquainted with the heartbreak that held me there.

______________________________________________________________________

“I wanna know what it feels like to come down

from the trip of a lifetime, pure ecstasy.”

Swan Song by Yung Lean

______________________________________________________________________

Some songs transport me to timelines I never even lived to see. Smoke City’s trip-hop tracks take me back to the fog of the late 90’s: urban melancholy in the UK’s signature grey. Subdued sounds fuse with the beats of Bossa Nova, making them seem familiar to me, despite my estrangement from the era.

Soda Stereo’s tunes take me even further into the imagined past: to 1980’s Argentina, during the height of a rock movement that left many legends behind— most of them dead now, having gone out in the tragic glory of excess and rebellion.

Music makes absent things present: people, places, eras, versions of selves we didn’t know existed yet.

______________________________________________________________________

“Me pondré el uniforme de piel humana.

No esperaba tanto resplandor.”

Vivo by Gustavo Cerati

______________________________________________________________________

Humans have known it for centuries: the healing dimension of music. At once, interior and communal. Ancient humans chanted in groups, took their shoes off, moved as erratically as the mysteries do.

These rituals haven’t been abandoned. We still turn to sad music to validate our melodrama. Go to raves so that the BPM can ease our anxiety. Have bedroom dance parties so that we can feel free.

Together, we worship the soundsystem, staring into the black sonic galaxy of a speaker. Letting it nibble at our earlobes and plant kisses on our vibrating faces.

Doing away with space time, we step outside of ourselves and give our bodies over to the sound waves, the crowd, the collective embrace.

Dancing is devotion to the moment; listening is the avenue to grace.