In record time, Supersonic Festival early bird tickets have sold out. Thanks to all who got in there fast, its great to see our enthusiasm for this festival shared by so many. Don’t fret you haven’t got a ticket yet, weekend tickets are only £80 for a full weekend of live music, performance, film, art and all the cake you can stuff in your face, they’re available HERE. Watch this space for further line up announcements.
Here’s just one of the many acts you have to look forward to…
If you prefer old SST label cassette tapes or an early Spaceman 3 cassette you recently found wedged in the back seat of your car to super slick modern day music production, you may dig Carlton Melton. Their music is recorded live inside a geodesic dome, and is entirely improvised.
http://carltonmeltonmusic.com/
Godflesh, Head of David, Napalm Death, Techno Animal, Jesu, Greymachine, Palesketcher – just some of the projects from the insanely prolific Justin Broadrick, who in his new relationship with 3by3, raises his Techno Animal moniker JK Flesh from the dead for its debut full-length outing, to once again prove his mastery of all things brutal.
Soul-crushingly dark beats and bass, layered with Broadrick’s inimitable guitar and vocal fuzz, providing a stark contrast to 2010’s Palesketcher output, that will resonate with fans of Godflesh and the post-dubstep landscape alike.
justinkbroadrick.blogspot.com/
Legendary Earth guitarist Dylan Carlson recently set out to pursue a solo endeavour, up to now he has released a cassette as drcarlsonalbion but there still remains an air of mystery and much anticipation as to what direction this solo musical endeavour will go next. For Supersonic, he will be teaming up with a number of other musicians including Teresa Colamonaco on vocals, Michael York on bagpipes, and Rogier Small on snare drum.
For one weekend each year Digbeth’s arches vibrate with strange, wonderful sounds as the Custard Factory becomes the focal point for one of the UK’s most distinctive and respected music festivals…Supersonic Festival.
2012 marks the ten year anniversary of this dynamic, constantly challenging, experimental, multi-disciplinary arts festival, which identifies the otherwise indescribable connections between experimental music, art, performance and film. To commemorate this impressive and very special milestone this year, Capsule propose to work with Supersonic alumni and emerging artists to celebrate the achievements of the festival thus far whilst also focusing firmly on the contemporary. Because as well as giving a warm welcome to many influential, era-defining artists over the years, Supersonic always has an uncanny knack for highlighting new acts before everyone else is talking about them.
Taking place 19-21 October 2012 at Custard Factory, Birmingham. we are very pleased to announce a special appearance from Germany’s Bohren & Der Club of Gore. This will be an exclusive UK show from the doom ridden jazz outfit and we’re incredibly excited!
This year will also see performances from:
Lichens / Dylan Carlson / Zeni Geva / JK Flesh / Carlton Melton / Tim Hecker / Dope Body / Rangda / Flower-Corsano Duo / Six Organs of Admittance / Sir Richard Bishop / Goat and a Small but Hard label showcase featuring DJ Scotch Bonnet plus many many more to be announced
Early bird tickets are available from https://supersonicfestival.com/tickets
For one weekend each year Digbeth’s arches vibrate with strange, wonderful sounds as the Custard Factory becomes the focal point for one of the UK’s most distinctive and respected music festivals…Supersonic Festival.
Join us this year to celebrate our 10th birthday.
Tickets will go on sale on the 1st May and we’ll be announcing our first wave of confirmed artists as well as hotel deals and more.
New York City’s Unsane assisted in pioneering a more aggressive, less studied version of noise rock, one that blended the scum/art industrial sturm und drang of Foetus, the Swans, Einsturzende Neubauten, and Sonic Youth with the decidedly more straightforward hardcore idiom favored by acts like Sick of It All. As a power trio, Unsane relied upon a hammering, power-press rhythm section, a searing Telecaster howl, and distorted vocals that resembled nothing if not the sound of a man trapped in the New York Subway system .
March 20th 2012 sees the band’s 7th full length ‘Wreck’ out on Alternative Tentacles Records. For over two decades they have represented a harsh, aggressive, honest, and intelligent voice of New York’s Lower East Side.
Big Business started as a two piece band composed of Jared Warren of Karp and The Tight Bros From Way Back When, and Coady Willis of Murder City Devils. Their sound has been characterized as a bombastic and frantic low end attack, marked by Warren’s signature vocal delivery. The band released its first album, “Head for the Shallow”, on January 25, 2005.
In late 2006, after relocating to Los Angeles, Jared and Coady both became members of The Melvins, first appearing on “(A) Senile Animal”.
This show will take place on Wednesday 4th July at The Rainbow Warehouse, Digbeth, Birmingham. Support comes from Birmingham’s Stinky Wizzleteat.
Tickets are £10 advance and available from https://www.theticketsellers.co.uk/
Capsule coaxed Harvey Milk to make their first UK appearance at Supersonic Festival in 2008. We’re thrilled to have them back.
Harvey Milk are an American experimental rock/noise rock band that formed in Athens, Georgia in the early 1990s. While Harvey Milk invariably draws comparisons to the Melvins, due to their penchant for slow, heavy riffs, the band has touched upon such artists as ZZ Top, Led Zeppelin, Leonard Cohen, and Kiss as influences in their music.
http://www.myspace.com/harveymilk
https://www.theticketsellers.co.uk/
We are thrilled to announce a very special show in a beautiful location. The gorgeous Esmerine, featuring members of Godspeed You! Black Emperor and A Silver Mt Zion will perform at St Paul’s Church in the Jewellery Quarter area of the city. The best example of modern chamber music around, we’re really excited to be able to match their sound with the perfect venue.
Tickets are £12 and available from theticketsellers and pick em up quick – there’s a real buzz about this show!
Poster designed by Leon Alexander Geernaert, go to http://iamchair.com to see more of his work.
Can you keep a secret?
Will you give us one night of your life?
Capsule and Fierce Festival have co-commissioned a mysterious and memorable experience that will take place in Birmingham on Thursday 5 April as part of the next Fierce Festival (which runs from 29 March – 8 April 2012). The artists have insisted that their identity is kept strictly anonymous until after the event has taken place. Capsule and Fierce Festival are combining their expertise in producing cutting edge music, contemporary art and live experiences to create this very unique event.
When you book you will be asked to leave an email address and phone number. We will arrange to meet you at a location near Birmingham City Centre, where your experience will begin.
Intrepid audience members can book alone for £15 or a discount is available for groups of 4, who can buy a ticket for £55. There are no concession tickets available. Early booking is advised as capacity is limited. Tickets are available here http://www.theticketsellers.co.uk
Please note you will be blindfolded as part of this experience.
Monday 5th March
Teeth of the Sea + Health & Efficiency + Victories at Sea
@ Hare & Hounds, Birmingham
https://www.theticketsellers.co.uk
For more forthcoming live shows in Birmingham, take a peek at http://capsule.org.uk/
Here are Teeth of the sea performing at Supersonic Festival 2011:
Last year’s Supersonic Festival saw many great moments, but perhaps one of the biggest highlights was In Conversation with Tony Conrad.
John Doran (The Quietus) spoke to sonic and visual art legend, Tony Conrad, about his long line of collaborative work. Here’s your opportunity to listen again to the talk as Tony gives insight into his cross artform approach, moving between the world of visual art, film and sound. The pair also discuss Tony’s early days working with The Velvet Underground as well as other influential characters. A rare and humourous treat! Enjoy… and check back next week for another recording.
In conversation with Tony Conrad @ Supersonic Festival 2011 by Supersonic Festival
Happy new year all, 2012 will be a very special year for Supersonic Festival in that we’ll be celebrating our 10th birthday, we want to make sure it’s a really memorable occasion. Some of you may remember our blog post calling for suggestions to be made for Supersonic 2011, well now is your chance to let us know who you’d like to see perform at Supersonic 2012. You never know your dream just may come true – after all many of you asked for Corrupted in 2009 , Godflesh for 2010 and Electric Wizard last year and so they came! Think big and have your say, we look forward to hearing your suggestions. Maybe you can top our dream of Lionel Richie and Mike Patton singing a duet of ‘Easy’. We can but dream.
For those of you who missed or want to re-enjoy the A-Zine panel discussion from the theatre space at Supersonic 2011 you now can listen to it in full on here!
Featuring Alex Zamora of Fever Zine, Nic Bullen, formerly of Napalm Death and Charlie Woolley, archivist of a unique collection of fanzines and political ephemera dating from the punk movement and its aftermath assembled by artist and collector Toby Mott. The panel discussed the history of zines, their inspirations and the resurgence of zine culture.
p.s. More stuff next week…
AtoZine panel discussion @ Supersonic Festival 2011 by Supersonic Festival
The lovely people at Creative Review have published this beautiful spread of Supersonic artwork over the years. January’s ‘music’ edition of the publication also features an interview with Capsule’s Lisa Meyer about the festival’s visual approach in its piece on festival design entitled ‘Less Mud, More Art’.
Lisa says “By considering your identity , taking the time to produce good quality material you convey the love that you’ll be paying to all elements of the festival; that’s what we’ve built our reputation on’.
The artwork shows designs and illustrations by Heavy Object, Stuart Kolakovich, Karoline Rerrie and Savage Pencil
“
Just released: LTD heavy weight vinyl recording of Tweak Bird at Supersonic 2010 – BUY NOW
Long standing fans of the brothers Tweak, we at Capsule were thrilled to invite TWEAK BIRD for their debut Supersonic Festival performance. Heavy rock has never felt so fun, or so sugar soaked! They joined a bill we were immensely proud of, with Swans joining us on the tour no one thought would ever happen and Godflesh performing a rare and much anticipated home coming show, along with new and exciting discoveries. So here we’ve captured one of our favorite performances of the weekend in our series of live releases, whether reminiscing or hearing it for the first time, enjoy this little piece of Supersonic history.
TWEAK BIRD is Caleb and Ashton Bird on vocals, guitar, drums, and all other intentional or unintentional instrumentation, and featuring Rene Everts on saxophone. Engineered live by Taylor Spray. Recording mixed and edited by Toshi “Gold Glove” Kasai at Nephews Closet in Los Angeles.
Photo by JWRobinson
Also a handful left of Iron Lung live at Supersonic 09, Harvey Milk live at Supersonic 08 clear vinyl
(image taken from http://dachshundlove.blogspot.com/)
We know that people who come to SUPERSONIC are a knowledgeable and opinionated lot so we’d like to ask for your assistance to develop and improve the next festival by answering a few questions about you and your experience. This should take no more than 5 minutes of your time, and your feedback is greatly appreciated.
Your answers here will aid us in keeping costs down and in making sure new and interesting artists will keep coming to the festival – so your input really does matter in making SUPERSONIC work.
https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/L6CMRGX
The questionnaire will go offline 1st Dec
Check out this video from Supersonic Festival 2011, filmed & edited by HTF Media, sound track by Teeth Of The Sea
It’s crunch time y’all!
Supersonic Festival 2011 takes place this weekend, 21-23 October at Custard Factory, Birmingham. Another weekend of dynamic music, film art and cake. Below is some useful info for festival attendees.
Timetable
Get your highlighters out as the festival timetable is now online, ready for you to plan your weekend.
Box Office
Located on Floodgate St, which runs off Digbeth High Street and will be open:
FRIDAY 9pm – midnight (Box office closed)
SATURDAY 4pm – 11pm (Box office closed)
SUNDAY 2pm – 10.30 (Box office closed)
Here is a link to a map http://g.co/maps/aqv9v
There are tickets still available from https://supersonicfestival.com/tickets
and will also be available on the door from 9pm tonight
Please make sure you come and pick up your wristband before the box office closes.
FAQ
We have an FAQ here – https://supersonicfestival.com/info/faq/
Cash points
There are only a few cash points machines in Digbeth, so you might want to take out money prior to arriving at the festival site. Particularly as our lovely Marketplace is back for another year, with Supersonic merch, band merch and stalls from a whole host of independent labels and distributors including Holy Roar, Cold Spring and altvinyl. There’ll also be a stall from the Birmingham Zine Festival as well as the Tea Room serving a delicious selection of cakes.
The Marketplace opening times are:
SATURDAY 4pm – 11pm
SUNDAY 2pm – 10.30
Food + Drink
This year we are running Supersonic bars at each stage. On sale will be Purity ales, Hogan cider and lager as well as The Kraken Rum, wines and soft drinks. There will also be tasty food available from Soul Food Project, Pika Pika Japanese food, Squisito Italian deli and more – suitable for vegans, vegetarians and meat eaters alike. (please note you are not permitted to bring your own alcohol on site)
Extra Treats
Artist Sam Underwood has recently installed his Sonic Graffiti project across Digbeth and he will be giving tour of the piece to Supersonic attendees over the weekend. Meet Sam outside VIVID http://www.vivid.org.uk/ on Friday 8pm and Sunday 8pm to plug yourself into the city.
Bring your own headphones.
As well as the music and film programme there are installations and exhibitions to keep you busy over the weekend. Grindcore: Cut n Paste, SOUNDkitchen: Cinema for the Ears () and Conny Prantera’s audiovisual installation will all be situated in Zellig, Custard Factory on Saturday and Sunday. The spaces will be open 12-8pm so you can come and check out these exciting works before the music programme begins.
Think you know your Electric Funeral from your Electric Wizard? Well put your music trivia knowledge to the test with Club Unlikely infamous QUIZ. It’s free to enter, just come on down to bar 70eights on Sunday 23rd and register your team by 2.15pm – exciting prizes!
Kids Gigs
There are still spaces available for families to join in with the Supersonic Kids Gigs, big sounds for little people. Two special performances will be taking place at the mac, introducing little ones to experimental sounds. On Saturday 22nd families can catch Lucky Dragons and on Sunday 23rd, The Berg Sans Nipple will bring their nimble fingered electronica wizardry. Tickets can be bought directly from mac.
Podcast
The third instalment of Brumcast’s Supersonic podcast is now online where you can check out Nathan Bell, Barn Owl, Drunk in Hell and many more. https://supersonicfestival.com/supersonic-podcast-no-3-2/2011/
Twitter
Our hastag this year is #ssf11
ENJOY!
SOUNDkitchen’s cinema for the ears
SOUNDkitchen is a collective of sound artists and composers bringing new and experimental sounds to Birmingham through exciting line-ups, eclectic electronic performances and collaborations. We’ve got some more information on what they’ll be presenting at Supersonic and have picked out some highlights here. These performances all run 12-8pm so they’re ideal for checking out before the bands start later in the afternoons.
Saturday 22nd October
2-3pm: BEAST (Birmingham ElectroAcoustic Sound Theatre). A multi-channel work curated by Jonty Harrison.
4-4.30pm: Imaginary Landscapes – Through the Moors. This piece tracks a journey made by Chris Tarren from his home in York out to the North-East coast, featuring multi-channel spatialisation, field recordings and experimentation that varies the sensations of reality in the material used.
5-6pm: Entre Terre et Ciel by Annie Mahtani and Julien Guillamat. Based on field recordings made around the village of Azet in the Pyrenees, this interesting piece features sounds from varying altitude levels from the bottom of a valley right up to a mountain path.
Sunday 23rd October
2-3pm: BEAST performance 2.
4-4.30pm: Iain Armstrong performs a laptop set of raw and processed sounds, focussing on aspects of noise.
4.30-5pm: Shelly Knotts processes the sound of the steel pan, weaving intricate metallic textures in an improvisation across SOUNDkitchen’s installation.
In addition, there are installations present for the duration of the festival. SOUNDkitchen will be airing field recordings and composed pieces in their site-specific installation. They’ve asked a variety of collaborators to produce work that ties in with Capsule’s Home of Metal exhibition by producing work along the themes of home and metal.
Supersonic weekend timetable
We’re pleased to finally unveil the final timetable for this weekend. Start making your plans now!
Box Office information
The box office is located on Floodgate Street, just off Digbeth High Street.
It’s open:
Friday: 9pm-midnight
Saturday: 4-11pm
Sunday: 2.30-10.30pm
There is no entry after these times.
A wider map of Birmingham is here: http://g.co/maps/aqv9v
Spectacle at Supersonic
Supersonic has invited six artists to create illustrations in response to this year’s theme of ‘Spectacle’. The term was borrowed from the Roman practice of staging circuses, in the famous “Bread and Circuses” philosophy of the Roman elite to maintain civil order without solving underlying social and economic problems.
Like the festival itself, ‘Spectacle’ operates in two contexts simultaneously. On the one hand, it refers to high culture performances where the draw for an audience is the impressive visual accomplishment. On the other hand, it refers to low cultural shows operating in a folk environment.
Making a spectacle of themselves then are former skateboard shop owner Chris Bourke, the ‘Organic Disturbances’ of Craig Earp, Harriet ‘Alana’ Shephard‘s pen and ink illustrations, Jake Blanchard, the gouache-based vibrancy of Sophia Alda and Thomas J Hughes‘ garish horror-influenced illustrations.
Test your know-how at the Supersonic quiz
Reckon you can name-that-riff in 3 seconds flat? Know your Neubauten from your Neurosis? Crystal clear about the precise differences between drone doom and funeral doom? Then pit your wits against the best in the Club Unlikely Supersonic quiz. It’s free to enter and you can field a team of anything between 2 and 6 people. The only possible drawback? It’s on Sunday afternoon so, depending on your preferences the night before, you might need a little pick-me-up to get the brain ticking over.
So, Sunday: 2.30pm start at 70eights. Please have your teams registered and ready to fire for 2.15pm.
Here’s some classic quiz action to get you in the mood.
Supersonic is produced by Capsule:
Unit 317, Zellig
Gibb Street
Birmingham UK
B9 4AT
