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Supersonic Festival are delighted to announce the first UK sow in over 10 years for Godflesh.
After leaving the ranks of Head of David in 1988 (having previously done time in the early days of Napalm Death), Justin Broadrick wasted no time in setting up a new outfit that was arguably as epoch-defining as Napalm. Teaming up with bassist Benny Green (his cohort in pre-Napalm act Fall of Because), their new act, Godflesh, saw the hyper-speed facets of Napalm Death turned on its head with downtuned guitars and slower tempos the order of the day. A tangible sense of urban decay and alienation oozed from every pore, thus birthing Industrial Metal.

Their ‘Streetcleaner’ opus conjured up images of concrete tower blocks; cold, grey flyovers and nihilistic angst – arguably as potent a musical representation of Birmingham as the opening chords to ‘Black Sabbath’.

To this day Godflesh are revered as godheads by acts as disparate as Isis and Fear Factory, this long-awaited 2010 reformation surely bound to propel them back into the consciousness of many, staking their claim as true musical innovators.

www.myspace.com/godsflesh

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Capsule invited the following six artists to create illustrations in response to this years festival headliners Italian legends GOBLIN. The group become the aural signifier of the Italian horror film movement of the seventies and the eighties, creating sound tracks to such cult classics as “Suspiria” (1977) and “Dawn of the Dead” (“Zombi”, 1978). As such this years theme was to create an illustration for Supersonic Festival in the style of a horror film poster! These works will be exhibited within the Custard Factory.

Drew Millward
Born in Coventry grew up in Bolton, and now lives in Leeds. Drew draws pictures the old fashioned way, with pens and pencils. If you like his drawings, please feel free to let him know. He is a friendly sort. Drew runs Birdwar Records with his good buddy Mr Luke Drozd, and plays drums in White Fang.
www.drewmillward.com

Emma Duggan
Born and bred in Birmingham, Emma has been drawing and making things for as long as she can remember.  Her work incorporates elements of both textiles and illustration.  While studied for her degree in textiles, she specialised in embroidery, with a parallel interest in drawn and print work.  This crossover is evident in pen and needle creations that are hard to categorise and has seen her create fashion, illustration work, jewellery as well as private commissions.
www.myspace.com/eilithrose

Gemma Correll
A Norwich-based freelance illustrator. She has worked for clients including Virgin Holidays and Hallmark cards and is represented in the UK by NB Illustration agency. She enjoys watching videos of pugs on Youtube and drinking coffee as well as being quite keen on Chihuahuas.
www.gemmacorrell.com

Karoline Rerrie
Along time ago Karoline worked for Matthew Herbert and illustrated most of his ‘Doctor Rockit’ album covers with rockets and assorted paraphernalia This helped develop her style and in particular the use of quirky characters, humour and hand drawn text. These have remained important elements of Karoline’s work and she now uses them in the small artist’s books she makes and exhibits. The most recent of these is ‘Half Baked’, a tale of cakes, baking and cannibalism. Karoline sees her illustration as a craft and prefers to work by hand as much as possible. In keeping with this aspect of her work Karoline uses a Japanese print gocco machine to hand print book covers and images to accompany them.
www.nursepussy.co.uk

Stuart Kolakovic
An illustrator represented by Heart Artists’ Agency, currently working on a comic book in his spare time, entitled “Lichen”, which will be published in 2010 by Blankslate Books.
www.stuartkolakovic.co.uk

Tommy Niemeyer
Guitarist of legendary splatter rock band The Accused & responsible for creating the wild, zombie mascot Martha Splatterhead which has adorned most of their albums and many of their promo items. It was only fitting to invite Tommy to create an illustration for this years festival.
www.splatterrock.com

Supersonic Installation: ‘There Are No Others, There Is Only Us’
video installation by Marc Silver / Music by Ben Frost

Moor Street Station . Birmingham
Friday 24th – Sunday 26th July
10 am – 6pm daily Free Entry

Premiering at Supersonic Festival ‘There Are No Others, There Is Only Us‘is a monochrome video projection created by director Marc Silver, which explores how we protect ourselves from a seemingly more chaotic planet.

In a time where the world is ever more connected and unbordered, artist Marc Silver considers whether crowds are a force for oppression, or a potential for resistance.

‘There are no others, there is only us’ is a powerful visual metaphor illustrating the nature of collaboration and the power of crowds, with music composed by post minimalist producer Ben Frost (Bjork, Valgeir Sigurosson).

The centerpiece of the film is an aerial dance of half a million swarming birds, projected at Birmingham Moor Street Station, where 7,000 commuters come and go daily.

In addition to Ben Frosts soundtrack 5 artists have been invited by Supersonjic Festival to compose alternative scores to accompany the film. These include pieces created by:
Andrew Moscardo-Parker, Stuart Tonge, Simon Fox, Matt Snowden, Sam Underwood

Produced by Capsule + Germination in association with Fierce!
With thanks to Chiltern Railways

Germination bring world-changing ideas to the public through live events and cultural projects. www.germination.co.uk

Fierce! is an international performance festival that has taken place annually in and around Birmingham, England since 1997.
www.myfiercefestival.co.uk

Screening: Suspiria
Director Dario Argento
Sound track by Goblin

APOLOGIES FULLY BOOKED

Friday 24th July 7pm – 9pm
VIVID | 140 Heath Mill Lane | Birmingham | B9 4AR
Supersonic Festival ticket holders only 18 +
Limited places must be booked in advance
(just 5 mins walk from the main festival site)

First bands on stage at 9.00pm

In honour of having Italian legends Goblin performing live on Sunday night at this years Supersonic Festival, we will be screening ‘Suspiria’ on Friday evening before the festival opens. The screening will take place at Vivid with ‘deadly’ cocktails on sale

Places are limited  – you must book in advance by emailing info[at]capsule.org.uk with ‘Suspiria‘ in the title – this is free to weekend ticket holders only!

Jessica Harper stars as Suzy Banyon, a young American ballet dancer who arrives at a prestigious European dance academy run by the mysterious Madame Blanc (Joan Bennett) and Miss Tanner (Alida Valli). But when a series of bizarre incidents and horrific crimes (including what Entertainment Weekly calls “the most vicious murder scene ever filmed”) turn the school into a waking nightmare of the damned, Suzy must escape the academy’s unspeakable secret of supernatural evil. Experience the most shocking and hallucinatory horror movie in history as you’ve never seen or heard it before, now featuring the fully remastered landmark score by Goblin and a heart-stopping new film transfer supervised by director Dario Argento and cinematographer Luciano Tovoli.

This is the definitive version of SUSPIRIA, an aria of terror beyond imagination and one of the most extraordinary horror films ever made. NOT ONE FOR THE FAINT HEARTED!

With thanks to Anchor Bay Home Entertainment

On site at the festival is Ideal Skate shop & ramp,  a skater owned store that has been supporting Birmingham skateboarding for the last 18 years.
For more info check: http://www.idealbirmingham.co.uk

Workshop: John Richards and the Dirty Electronic Ensemble – FULLY BOOKED

Build your own Sudophone and join the Dirty Electronic Ensemble for a performance at Supersonic Festival. This DIY instrument changes pitch through using the conductivity of the human body. The workshop explores the idea of self made electronics and interactive environments for music and performance. Richards encourages participants to seek new ways of creating electronic music & will culminate in a performance of pieces devised by the workshop participants.

Capacity for this workshop is limited to 25 places therefore it is essential that you book in advance, no knowledge of electronics or previous experience at building electronic musical devices is needed.

TO BOOK A PLACE email info[at]capsule.org.uk with DIRTY ELECTRONICS in the subject heading, this is free to all SUPERSONIC FESTIVAL ticket holders, there are only 25 places so its a first come, first served basis!!! SORRY FULLY BOOKED

John Richards completed a doctorate in electroacoustic composition at
the University of York in 2002, and he is currently part of the Music, Technology and Innovation Research Centre at De Montfort University, Leicester.

Following from the Dirty Electronic Ensemble performance will be a screening of Motherboard, a new technology show, with a big twist. It’s about the human side of technology, and technology’s place as humanity’s and culture’s great enabler. Initial subjects include: the video game pioneer and cosmonaut who spent $30 million to fly into space, a research facility where human decomposition after death can be scientifically studied and robotics pioneers who are developing their own version of the exoskeleton from Aliens.

Expect jetpacks, rocket bikes, head transplants, artificial intelligence, pretty girl robots, plants that can play music, submarines and technologies used for smuggling drugs and hundreds more amazing stories from the future that is happening now.

Motherboard is produced by VSB TV

Goblin – Italy
Throughout their career which spans from the early ‘70’s, Goblin have soundtracked around 20 films, with ‘Profondo Rosso’, ‘Suspiria’ (a film that became the benchmark in 70’s gore flicks) and ‘Dawn Of The Dead’ that really form the basis of their legendary reputation as they perfectly showcased their vast stylistic repertoire from the prog-flavoured rock they’re best known for, through tribal rhythms, electronics, orchestration which seamlessly fitted and added to the impact of the on-screen action.

Recent years have seen a huge resurgence of interest in the band’s work, particularly amongst the alternative rock, goth and horror film communities, with very well received reissues of their classic soundtracks and DVDs of the films they worked on, plus the compilation cd ‘The Fantastic Voyage Of Goblin – The Sweet Sound Of Hell’. 2005 also saw the publication of the book “Goblin – La musica la paura il fenomeno”, written by Giovanni Aloisio, and there is even a band in the US made up of Goblin fanatics and calling themselves Zombi.

“The legacy of Goblin is vast and full of surprises, and they’ve had a great influence on how rock music can be used in film scores. And, as such, Goblin can claim to be not only one of the most important of Italian rock bands, but also creators of some of the finest Italian film soundtracks alongside the redoubtable Ennio Morricone!” Alan Freeman

Goblin Q & A Theatre Space/Sunday
hosted by Alex Fitch, deputy editor at Electric Sheep

It is with great honor that Supersonic presents Italian legends GOBLIN, their first UK show in over 20 years.

The name Goblin first appeared on the map in 1975, when the band recorded the soundtrack for Dario Argento’s “Profondo Rosso”. This was the starting point for a decade long, highly creative and widely influential collaboration between the eccentric film maker and Goblin, that made the group become the aural signifier of the Italian horror film movement of the seventies and the eighties, creating sound tracks to such cult classics as “Suspiria” (1977) and “Dawn of the Dead” (“Zombi”, 1978). Goblin created some of the most thrilling pieces of soundtrack music ever made. While Argento undisputedly masters color and composition, Goblin’s suggestive and complex symphonic scores evocated dark atmospheres, suspense and stirring drive. In combination they create the unique, highly stylized, surreal and psychedelic experience, that made the movies become cult classics. 

SUNN O))) – US
It is with great pleasure we present our good friends SUNN O))) at this years Supersonic Festival. The band will be playing material from GrimmRobe demos exclusively.

Expect pure, raw, uninhibited invocations featuring O)))’s core members: Stephen O’Malley and Greg Anderson and accompanied by 2 Les Paul guitars, 4 Sunn fullstacks and 4 Ampeg bass stacks. No guests, no vocals, no keyboards.
www.southernlord.com

65daysofstatic – UK
Initially, the band interspersed heavy, progressive, guitar-driven instrumental sections with live drums and off-beat sampled drums akin to those of Aphex Twin, although since their second album they have developed their work to include keyboard parts.
http://www.myspace.com/65propaganda

Celebrating Independence! Saturday/Theatre Space

Over a quarter of the UK’s independent music stores went out of business last year, according to the Entertainment Retailers Association, in the record store heyday of the 1980s there were 2,200 stores; by 1994 there were 1,200, today only 305 remain in the UK.  Another recent blow to the independent scene has been the sudden closure of Plan B magazine; Supersonic brings together a panel of guests including the manager of Rough Trade East Spencer Hickman, Allison Schnackenberg of Southern Records and former editor of Plan B Louis Patterson to discuss the future of independent music.
Chaired by Emma Petit editor of the book Old Rare New: The Independent Record Shop

Followed by a selection of music shorts chosen by the multi talented Norwegian electronic musician, graphic designer, illustrator & filmmaker KIM HIORTHØY

Army Of Flying Robots (UK)

Playing live once again after an 18-month hiatus before they get too geographically scattered, AOFR sound is playing hide and seek with established styles, marrying hardcore hypervelocity, metallic discordance and hidden melodies. After close to a decade of DIY splits 7”s, 10”s and a single masterly album (2007’s “Life Is Cheap” on Superfi/Feast of Tentacles), and numerous UK and European tours (with Daughters and Taint among others) AOFR is still the UK underground’s best kept secret.
www.myspace.com/armyofflyingrobots

Arbouretum – US
Arbouretum first began in late 2002 as a vehicle for singer/guitarist David Heumann’s songwriting.  Since their debut album, Long Live  the Well-Doer, there have been several lineup changes that have included musicians such as Ned Oldham (Anomoanon), Walker Teret (Cass McCombs’ band), and Jennifer Hutt, as well as drummers Mitchell Feldstein (Lungfish) and David Bergander (Celebration).  The sweeping, atmospheric textures of the first record soon gave way to a more visceral, elemental approach.  Amplifiers were turned up, drums were hit harder, and songs crescendoed into spiraling, noise-soaked climaxes on the second full-length, Rites of Uncovering. 
Released on Thrill Jockey in early 2007, the record garnered much attention and critical acclaim.  XLR8R called it “the best doom-folk record of all time” and Uncut referred to it as an instant “cult classic”. 
http://www.myspace.com/arbouretum

Atomized – UK
Atomized is the what occurs when you combine the tribal percussion and bellows of Lovely Feyde Rautha (Russell McEwan of Black Sun) and the electronic-vocal attack of Lea Cummings (Kylie Minoise) as they reinterpret some well known pop songs from the 80s, or as they describe – “Raped versions of pop classics by Madonna, Visage, Howard Jones, Haircut 100, & Culture Club.” As you can imagine, the songs sound nothing like the original chart toppers, dwelling in a nocturnal grey area between Mummy and Daddy era-Whitehouse (especially on their Madonna and Visage cover) and Swans at their minimal best.

Equal parts industrial, noise and no-wave – it’s a heavy and merciless release from these two, the audio equivalent to Boy George’s night terrors in the clink. This will be released from Lea’s Kovorox Sound label in the not so distant future, be sure to catch their debut performance of this material at Glasgow Implodes this March.
www.kovoroxsound.com/

Chris Herbert – UK
Chris Herbert lives and works in Birmingham, UK. He is inspired by urban field recordings, a neon-drenched world of darkness and rainfall, mis-judged glances and rude altercations – this is a sub-aquatic soundtrack to the underbelly of city living, bringing to mind the darker moments of Stars of the Lid or William Basinski for starters, and giving a nod towards Deaf Center at their most atmospheric.

Making music in a vacuum and with decidedly low-tech methods, Chris’s pieces are improvised intuitively leaving just a trace of melody or the implication of rhythm. A swampy, gaseous, and even dirty, crumpled sound that embraces the ambiguity of faraway broadcasts. Clouded, melancholic music of indistinct color.

Recording for kranky, live performances are rare. Chris will be accompanied at Supersonic with visuals by Dom Murphy.

www.myspace.com/chrisherbert
www.taktak.net

Caribou – Canada
“a perfect slice of bedroom psychedelia from someone for whom melody and emotion are ten times as important as collectible obscurity”
http://www.myspace.com/cariboumanitoba

Corrupted – Osaka Japan
 Corrupted is THE absolute reference in terms of monolithic and experimental funeral doom.

The band has become legendary: consistently refusing interviews and photo shoots, the band has only been seen in Europe during a discreet tour in 2000 and a couple of appearances last year, this will be their first show in the UK.

Corrupted’s music is bleak, monumental and slow as a pachyderm… Extraordinary brutal riffs-drones played in a very low guitar/bass duo, as well as a drummer who maintains a brontosaurus like striking force on improbable slow tempos serve as a morbid box for a singer with an inimitable tone: guttural and abysmal at will, he declaims apocalyptic texts in Spanish (!!!). The band sometime uses long instrumental, melancholic breaks that admirably contrast with the force of their sound.
http://www.dxmxtx.com/corrupted/

Diagonal – UK
A seven piece from Brighton, all in their mid twenties. They all had a shared love of Kyuss and the stoner rock bands of the mid nineties but this soon developed into an obsession with space rock, prog rock and even Jazz rock bands such as Coliseum. Word has spread about their incendiary live show which manages to combine the righteous indignation of bands such as the MC5 and The Sex Pistols with the cosmic jams of Gentle Giant and Can and the experimental noise of bands such as Battles and Lightning Bolt.
http://www.myspace.com/diagonalband

Drum Eyes (UK/JPN)
Drum Eyes, featuring DJ Scotch Egg and friends, combining numerous drumkits & gameboy action – expect chaos!
www.myspace.com/drumeyes

Earthless – US
Earthless is a psychedelic rock band from San Diego, California that is known for their unusually lengthy instrumental songs. Its members are Isaiah Mitchell (guitar), Mike Eginton (bass), and prolific drummer Mario Rubalcaba. Rubalcaba has played for such staples of the San Diego scene as 411, Rocket from the Crypt (alias Ruby Mars), Clikatat Ikatowi, The Black Heart Procession, Hot Snakes, Sea of Tombs, the Sultans, Pinback.
http://www.myspace.com/earthless

Esoteric – UK
Avant-garde doom from the depths of Birmingham, Esoteric promise you the ‘sonic ride of your life’. A bold statement maybe, but what else from such a bold sound? A deep, brooding band with a cinematic and poetic edge, they have previously played with Final, Jarboe and Guapo.

http://www.esotericuk.net

Head Of David – UK
Rising from the landlocked Black Country of England in the early 80’s, Head Of David were a genetically modified product, bleeding clogged metallic arteries into the densest industrial smog. Signed to Blast First – first live show in 23 years as original line up.
http://www.myspace.com/headofdavidofficial

Glatze – UK

A musician, circuit-bender and all-out live music nutter, hailing from Kernow and now based in the West Midlands. His sets are an orgy of customised electronic equipment, with circuit-bent kids’ dolls sitting alongside doctored loudspeakers, squealing guitars and a fun-at-all-costs mentality!
www.mrunderwood.co.uk

Growing – US
“A kaleidosope of prismatic tones and juddering electronics forming a series of mesmeric constellations.” – Mojo
http://www.myspace.com/growingsoundnyc