The doyenne of minimal reflects on Perlon, forgotten classics and the tracks that never leave her record bag in this live edition of Playing Favourites at Dimensions Festival.
Following the minimal boom of the '00s and early '10s, the sound has in more recent years flourished quietly in the smaller corners of certain scenes. It certainly, as some people like to claim, never died. In fact, if you were to discuss this with Sonja Moonear, the Swiss DJ would argue that the genre is as popular as ever.
Much like the other artists in the upper echelons of the scene—Zip, Raresh, Nicolas Lutz—Moonear made a name for herself by DJing rather than making music. She cut her teeth in Geneva as a resident at its key club at the time, Weetamix. Perlon label head Zip was a regular guest and, as Moonear recounts, he invited her to play in Berlin after she warmed up for him a few times. Moonear is now an in-demand DJ in her own right, with a style that takes in a broad cross-section of house, techno and minimal.
Recorded at last summer's Dimensions Festival, this edition of Playing Favourites sees Moonear select some of her favourite '90s and early '00s minimal classics and the records that never leave her record bag. She's truly obsessed with music and finding rare grooves, and her enthusiasm shines through. In between playing tracks, she talks about the squat scene in Geneva and how she spends hours preparing her bag every week. She reminisces about the first time she put her hand on a turntable; her transition away from the piano as an adolescent; and her primary goal in her career, which is "purely to enjoy herself."
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