A VERY special Supersonic 5 Song Friday in honour of tonight’s #SupersonicPresents event as part of Outlands, the UK’s new touring network of experimental music. Advance tickets available here! £12 on door.
Matana Roberts I Kelly Jayne Jones I MX World I Sean Clancy
“Nomadic noise pop due Group A blend performance art and DIY post-punk in defiance of economic constraints” – The Wire
Japanese avant-garde synth wave duo group A was formed in 2012 by Tommi Tokyo (synthesizers, vocals, percussion) and Sayaka Botanic (violin, cassette tapes). Projected by what Sayaka claims to be an expression of anger, their early shows came as a shock to most spectators: intensely emotional poetry readings and nude live-paintings meeting non-stop waves of noise.
Since then the duo have grown into a beast of their own, as exemplified in their recent release with Mannequin Records late last year. While their mixture of synth heavy minimal wave, avant noise, striking visuals and performance art continues to grow- particularly in their resonance of the times and the experimental scene- there still carries the very breath of early industrial pioneers such as Throbbing Gristle or Cabaret Voltaire. Sharing bills with artists such as Acid Mother Temple, Merzbow, Nisennenmondai, Phew and Melt Banana, the duo coolly whip up electrical storms with their clanking beats and swooping violin and vocals. Their play on aesthetic through costume is similarly a truly unique part of the duo’s identity as enigmatic, one-of-a-kind performers, with their live shows being nothing if not visual: tag-team action painting, wraparound projections and mixed media experimental stagewear ranging from knobbly white bodystockings to shredded-newspaper suits to barely dressed at all.
Their approach to djing is similar to how they make music, creating and mixing completely different sounds which juxtapose and play to Tommi and Sayaka’s individual, contrasting tastes. Group A are, above all else, creators of uniqie palette’s of sound, combining industrial/minimal synth/rhythmic noise with contemporary classical music to soundtracks from 60-80’s films.
Their influential experimental DJ-set at Atonal Berlin ’16 and mixtape for Brvtalist can all be found on Soundcloud
Watch their Boiler Room Berlin live set below, and catch them in June @ #SSFest2018.
“It’s minimal techno without the electronics, performed with jaw-dropping precision, and this is Goat.”– Japan Times
Whilst drummer Tetsushi Nishikawa pounds out a straight, brutal pulse on drums, Akihiko Ando- practically contorting into his saxophone- plays free, atonal drones that squeeze between the pounding bass drum. The remaining two musicians, Atsumi Tagami and Koshiro Hino, play bass and guitar respectively, radically deviating from the typical tropes of their instruments in a synergised harmonic picking.
This is Goat, Japanese avant-garde group and meticulous makers of dark sound.
Hailing from Osaka, Japan, Goat challenge the typical rock-band set up with their unique, intricate approach to minimalism, prioritising pure percussive sound over melodic content. After going through a reshape in early 2017 with a new lineup, they have moved on to build compositions that explore rhythmic aspect even further, centering on intertwining patterns of repetitive rhythms and bringing audiences into a trance like fatigue. Utilising harmonics outside standard tonality along with clever muting, Goat craft complex, driven, forceful compositions which are both urban and tribal at the same time- their percussion, for example, comprising of a bass drum, snare and hi-hat with a muted bass for every string to hit with a punch.
Their sound is miles apart from that of other rock bands. They apply their talents to a creative body that is truly unique, and at the heart of this body is 30-year-old Hino, an established staple in Osaka’s experimental music scene through his involvement with similarly avant-garde act Bonanzas, techno project YPY and as a touring member of internationally renowned noise act Boredoms. It is Hino’s approach that stresses the importance of rhythm over melodic and harmonic content. The overall effect of this approach conjures up a state that is stoic and unsympathetic, yet one which fundamentally strips away all but a grittier, honest sound.
Perhaps the foreboding darkness growing from their music is a reflection of the times. In conversation with Japan Times Hino shares his expressive view that he feels “a large amount of dissatisfaction and uncertainty facing Japan currently…I think we need more than basic improvements, we need to implement drastic reforms.”
“There’s no doubt that the rage and uncertainty I feel toward the current state of society influences my music,” he says. “I can’t put it concretely, but it’s possible that moving forward my style and methods will start to reflect these thoughts more clearly.”
Goat’s performance at Supersonic is sure to be an unmissable one. Get a taste for their meticulous style below. SUPERSONIC TICKETS HERE.
“This havoc machine hails straight from Brazilian lands, wielding a harsh mixture of vicious d-beat, abrasive sludgey guitars and walls of noise.”– Obscene Extreme
Brazil’s Deaf Kids are a band bouyed by momentum. Their sound is a ceaseless culmination of noise terror: waves of repetition, raw dis-chords, dissonant riffs. Think a brutal blend of hardcore punk, metal, experimental noise, and a pumping rhythmic vein with its roots in African and Indian polyrhythm and a love for the traditional sounds of their native Brazil and Latin America.
It is a guttural, scorched mutation of psychedelia – although using the term psychedelic in the absolute loosest sense with the band claiming that “non-genre genres” are a chief source of inspiration. Anything from their own background in punk, right the way through to spiritual jazz, they celebrate practically any form of sound which allows the artist to experiment with the utter extremes of musical expression.
A response to a festering, corrupt government by forming a blackened d-beat/crust band, frontman and chief songwriter Dvglas sparked Deaf Kids as a solo project back in 2010, aged 17. With the growth of the group as has it’s focus, moving away from D-Beat in an incorporation of auxiliary and connection to different rhythms and the psychedelic realm.
Although their sound isn’t new, it strives to be different. Their unique melting of sounds and influences is evident alone in their vast discography, yet there is far more to Deaf Kids than their defiance of genre. Their blending and reworking of international sounds- deep South American tradition with African roots- says a lot about the realities of being Brazilian, and the region’s potted colonial past. Certainly, toward the start of the project their was a gear toward recognising social inequality, yet the lyrics and music have progressed over the years to address both the outer and inner self, turning into a more reflective process.
Their music has been on a head spinning journey which has led them to the multi-faceted and dazzling Configuração do Lamento. The album, a kaleidoscopic 23 minutes lurching from gut-wrenching squalls of guitar to soul-consuming extensions of rhythm, has been released Neurot label, and promises the listener a riotous sound combined with trance-inducing cacophony and a body-shaking mix of percussive rhythms and bending guitars. Don’t say we didn’t warn you.
“Collins’ reappearance is remarkable in itself; more remarkable still is that she seems to have re-emerged with her powers undimmed.”– The Guardian
The story behind the 38 year hiatus, from which Shirley Collins has returned, is a tragic tale of treachery straight out of a ballad. Following the betrayal of her husband the legendary folk singer dramatically lost her voice on stage in the late 70’s, dropping from the burgeoning UK folk scene when diagnosed with dysphonia.
Though Shirley Collins (MBE) has been absent from the music scene for many years, her impact as a legendary folk singer and beloved, respected song collector has not diminished. Her return to the studio and stage bears the same stark strangeness that made her early work so powerful, with a tone that is strikingly confident and uncompromising.
One of the most striking voices of British folk music from the 1950s through the ’70s, she helped pave the way for younger musicians by blending folk with jazz and rock. In London during the 1960s Collins soared in influence when recording albums with her sister Dolly and guitarist Davey Graham. She took her unadorned way of singing and paired it with instruments from the Renaissance- later with electric guitars in the band she formed with her second husband, Ashley Hutchings.
Collins eventually wrote a book about her travels with Alan Lomax on their folk song collecting trip around the Southern states of America, a book which she toured, giving dramatised talks about the pair’s experiences and the English folk tradition. With the promise of working in her own home, surrounded by anticipating sympathetic ears, Collins undertook recordings for her latest release Lodestar on Domino Records.
The album may paint a picture of a cold, brutal world, but the flashes of festivity and limpid beauty shine on from her years in the blossoming UK folk scene. As comedian Stewart Lee said- dedicated fan and one of the first to hear the new album- “Her voice has changed…but it has gained a lot, in some ways, in sort of character.”
And that is the essence of Shirley Collins’ music. Her songs have come full circle, with her experiences in between gifting her the ability to fully inhabit these songs and their meaning. She is signature of what her musical tradition is all about: the experiences of lives lived and the stories they tell.
In late 2017 a biopic was screened and released on the singer’s life. The Ballad of Shirley Collins is a poetic response to the life and times of this icon, made by Rob Curry and Tim Pester over 3-and-a-half-years.
Watch the teaser below to be introduced to this totemic musical figure, AND MAKE SURE YOU SEE HER LIVE AT SUPERSONIC FESTIVAL THIS JUNE.
“…blasts of caustic nu-metal noise deconstructions capture a kind of intense outsider psychosis.”- Crack Magazine
If you heard his mind-boggling debut last year- made entirely of Slipknot samples- you would know that Croww is not for the faint-hearted. In his own words, the four crushing tracks make up a “part mixtape, part imaginary soundtrack”, and reflect a
Prosthetics, 2017
Croww has turned Slipknot’s cultural cadaver into a polysemous mutant that works as a brutalist DJ tool, something which, in an age swamped by either populism clones or nostalgia, boldly expresses the artist’s individuality in an important.
Emerging from the outer-regions of South Manchester, the same scene as the likes of Willow and Turinn, Croww’s sound pecks at the corpses of Black Metal, Flashcore and DnB, whilst also touching on extremities of Grindcore and hyper-modern Rap instrumentals in a way which alternates the pop and subcultural phenomena of the past twenty years.
Part club, part metal, part horror score: the Croww will transform the stage at Supersonic Festival this year as Robert Aiki Lowe’s guest curation.
Listen to Croww on NTS HERE, and experience them live at Supersonic Festival 2018.
“…a hallucinatory evocation of both noise and dance traditions, a lovely nightmare from which you won’t soon wake up.” – Noisey
New York duo Wetware are key reminders of New York’s long history of dance music and confrontational performance. It’s something which is immediately clear in their music. The feeling and influences that infects the Brooklyn-based duo – whether it be taken from within the late 70’s No Wave canon projections through venues like the Mudd Club or the downtown avant-garde galleries- allows Wetware’s overall being as a cohesive and confrontational unit as enigmatic as it is familiar.
Their live shows offer all sorts of barely human vocalisations– humming, murmuring, and alternate bleating– combined with a swell of abstract crackles and broken down drum parts which whirl around the stage. With the requisite accompaniment of strobes and fog, Wetware’s perfromance is transportive, taking the audience into another realm where language is unsettled but everything is incredibly, unspeakably loud.
Formed in 2015, Wetware eased into its performative role with their live shows around their home city. Vocalist Roxy Farman stole audience’s attention immediately, using her body in tandem with her voice as a weaponized vehicle for the band’s anxiety filled performance. The synergy that has developed between Farman and electronic counterpart Matthew Morandi has been explosive.
The music they’ve released over the last few years has been similarly snowblinding. Starting from 2016’s self-titled tape on Primitive Languages, they’ve endeavoured upon a uniquely unsettled exploration between noise music and the dancefloor, their live antics and behavior causing alarm amongst local audiences, something which has branded Wetware the group to “not be missed”.
See their live performance at Trans-Pecos New York, AND CATCH THEM AT SUPERSONIC FESTIVAL 2018 as guest curations of Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe. TICKETS HERE.
SUPERSONIC FESTIVAL 22ND-24TH JUNE * RETURNING TO THE CUSTARD FACTORY
DAY TICKETS NOW ON SALE & DAY LINE UPS ANNOUNCED
GNOD, NIK VOID, TOMAGA’S LIVE SOUNDTRACK TO KENNETH ANGER’S ‘LUCIFER RISING’, UKAEA AND THE DEBUT UK PERFORMANCE FROM FILM COMPOSER MARK KORVEN
+ We are THRILLED to announce that part of Supersonic 2018 will be taking place in the festival’s spiritual home of the Custard Factory, in the cultural hub of Digbeth in Birmingham. We’re excited to share this adapted space with those in attendance, certain that it will bring back fond memories to those who have been before, as well as offering an exciting new space to first-timers.
This year, we are hugely excited about hosting artist DENNIS MCNETT‘s first major project in the UK as our artist-in-residence. In collaboration with a number of the musicians and audience members at the festival, Dennis McNett will create a large-scale procession, where the art will become performance as the event unfolds. Supersonic shall also play host to the first UK premier of a brand new GAZELLE TWIN album, and welcomes the debut UK performance Toronto based film composer MARK KORVEN (The Witch) on a new instrument specialising in creating horrifying sounds: The Apprehension Engine. With ROBERT AIKI AUBREY LOWE as guest curator, his collaborative performance of YUNOHANA VARIATIONS (along with SUSIE IBARRA and YOSHIMIO of Boredoms/OOIOO) will also be a UK first.
Nik Void
MOOR MOTHER and NIK VOID (FACTORY FLOOR) will not only perform at Supersonic this year, but will also be the artists-in-residence in the MOOGSOUND LAB. Supersonic are delighted to welcome veteran musicians SHIRLEY COLLINS and THE EX to perform, the latter will also be leading the SUPERSONIC KID’S GIG this year.
Angel-HO
We have partnered with The Quietus (who are celebrating their tenth year) to select a new wave of underground musicians, sound artists, producers and bands to perform, who create immersive worlds for their audiences to participate in. These include; UKAEA, the bizarre electro k-pop from TRIKILATOPS, MESANGE – the collaboration between violinist Agathe Max (Kuro) and guitarist Luke Mawdsley (Mugstar/Cavalier Song) and MODERN RITUAL, featuring solo sets from acclaimed musicians Charles Hayward (This Heat), Laura Cannell and Hoofus (André Bosman), new sound performance/talks from writer/researchers Jennifer Lucy Allan and Luke Turner and a new collaboration between all of the artists.
Jennifer Walshe
Other new additions to the line up include the crushing, cataclysmic new protest music from GNOD, from South Africa, the sonic and stylistic savant ANGEL-HO, CATTLE, OLANZA, YOUTH MAN who create a thrilling wrecking-ball of a live show, subversive composer JENNIFER WALSHE, and TOMAGA who shall perform a live soundtrack to Kenneth Anger’s 1966 occult classic film from his Magick Lantern Cycle. We also welcome the sizzling, stifling and ever so slightly ear-scraping YERBA MANSA, a must for any lover of untamed guitars, THE DWARFS OF EAST AGOUZA, featuring Maurice Louca (Alif, Bikya), Sam Shalabi (Land of Kush, Shalabi Effect) and Alan Bishop (Sun City Girls, The Invisible Hands, Alvarius). And last but by no means least, CONNECTED DEVICES, the working title of a modular mechanical musical instrument that artists Sam Underwood and Graham Dunning are designing and building. Somewhere between a giant music box and an obsolete knitting machine, it will play rhythm and drone as a two-player semi-autonomous instrument. We are delighted to announce that it will be unveiled in a debut performance at Supersonic Festival.
DAY LINE UPS
Friday
Croww / Goat (Jp) / Housewives / Moor Mother / The Ex / Wetware
+ Ideas of Noise stage featuring a feast of experimental sounds from the Midlands and beyond
Saturday
Gazelle Twin UK premier of new material
Angel-Ho / Andrea Belfi / Cattle / Connected Devices – Sam Underwood + Graham Dunning / Deaf Kids / Faka / Jennifer Walshe / Joasihno / Mario Batkovic / Nik Void / Terminal Cheesecake / The Dwarfs of East Agouza Vanishing Twin / Yerba Mansa / Youth Man / Yves Tumor
Sunday
Shirley Collins
Yunohana Variations – YoshimiO (Boredoms, OOIOO) + Susie Ibarra + Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe (Lichens)
Daniel Higgs / Gnod / Group A / Mark Korven – composer of The Witch / Mésange / Modern Ritual – Laura Cannell + Charles Hayward / Olanza
Tomaga live soundtrack to Kenneth Angers ‘Lucifer Rising’ / Trikilatops / Wolves In The Throne Rooms / UKAEA
Dennis McNett procession
+ talks/workshops/installations + much more throughout the weekend
Gazelle Twin shares the first taste of her upcoming album, ‘Pastoral’, with her new single Hobby Horse.
The track is the first to be unveiled and will be exclusively premiered live at Supersonic Festival this June. The song is to be released June 22nd, one day ahead of it’s performance, via Anti-Ghost Moon Ray, the label co-founded by Elizabeth Bernholz, the genius behind Gazelle Twin.
The album will follow later this year. “Pastoral is an album that juggles British identities,” Bernholz explains. “A musing on how a sordid past becomes ‘quaint’… and that there is horror in every Idyll.”
Give it a listen here!
Capsule’s internationally renowned festival runs 22th-24th June 2018 and there are plenty of opportunities to get involved as a volunteer.
Supersonic has secured its experimental reputation with consistently innovative and explosive concoctions of visual installations, films, exhibitions and music. Guaranteed to open your eyes and ears to music and art outside the predictable genre labels and familiar performance spaces.
You will be part of an ever growing, friendly community of music and art lovers helping to maintain the values of bringing the extraordinary to curious audiences in an all inclusive way. This is will be an invaluable experience into how a festival runs but not only that, you’ll be contributing to something truly Superspecial whilst making friends along the way!
We need a dedicated team of volunteers to help deliver Supersonic over the festival weekend (22nd -24th June) and also in the run up to the festival (early June onwards).
This year we are on the lookout for people for the following roles:
Artist Liason / Box Office / Hospitality / Site Set up / Merch / Promotion
If you are interested in being involved – please fill out the application form [here]
“The pleasure of following Higgs…lies more in where he takes you than how he gets you there.”– Pitchfork
If you were growing up in the 80’s or 90’s, Lungfish may well have been one of the most important bands in your music anthology. The post-hardcore group tapped into something incantatory, enraging a sense of quest, spirituality and poetry via an unmatched raga-like minimalism.
Since then, Daniel Higgs has continued something of a Lungfish legacy in his solo material, yet shifting focus to a long-neck banjo, jew’s harp, and fried/crusty atmospherics. Musician, poet, visual artist, tattooist: Higgs’ artistic output – spanning three decades, numerous albums, books of poetry and collections of drawings – simply defies classification, instead bringing the musical and the visual into one singular being.
With the appearance of a heavily bearded tattooed prophet, Daniel Higgs emerged from the early-’80s Baltimore/D.C. hardcore punk scene as an underground icon with a near-mythological status. His dark psychedelic sound being brewed with early-’80s hardcore energy and aesthetics, Higg’s work as a vocalist earned him a solid following and a lasting, epochal reputation.
In recent years, Higgs has released a number of solo outings that can only be described as the ultimate in isolation. On Atomic Yggdrasil Tarot, Higgs weaves meditative, casually ruptured drones using acoustic and electric guitar, upright pianos, banjo and jew’s harp, recorded entirely at home on cassette recorder. He pairs the music with a series of paintings that call to mind religious iconography passed through the disfiguring surrealism of Miro. Often we hear that a true work of art is meant to speak for itself, and with the work of Daniel Higgs the maxim rings truer than ever.
“Moor Mother might be the most radical – even the most useful – Afrofuturist artist to emerge for years.”– WIRE
Moor Mother is the viscerally charged output of Philadelphia based artist and activist, Camae Ayewa. In line with her own description her music weaves between “blk girl blues”, “project housing bop” to “slaveship punk”, with these self made categorisations allowing Moor Mother to be fluid and interdisciplinary with her expression. Her music is often harsh, confrontational, projecting both the cathartic anger of punk and the expansive improvisatory spirit of Sun Ra into an output that is consistently grounded in a sense of history and story-telling. Through her blending of hip-hop, samples, spoken word and free jazz into collages that shudder with both pride and anger she charts centuries of abuse against black people, the differing textures working in tandum to create a strange, jarred beauty.
Her poetry, music, and ‘D-I-Y time travel’ become tools in depicting ugly truths; often harsh, often strange, always imperative and significant to building a better future for black America. Her advocacy for Afrofuturism- the movement that visualises utopian prospects for black culture- means that her artistry speaks of a painful past as a step toward envisioning what is yet to come. Each branch off the art of Afrodiaspora is united by a desire to create contexts that ‘encourage a process of disalienation’, and Ayewa creates music that implicates, names culpabilities, and creates a space to learn from difficulty. This is not an imagined future, but one instead which creates art as a distortion and reconsideration of the present.
Her debut album Fetish Bones on Don Giovanni records was released in 2016 to critical acclaim. Named 3rd best album of the year by The Wire Magazine, number 1 by Jazz Right Now and appearing on numerous end of the year lists from Pitchfork, Noisy, Rolling Stone, and Spin Magazine, she has since released ‘The Motionless Present’ commissioned by CTM X VINYL FACTORY 2017, as well as fronted the groups Irreversible Entanglements, Moor Jewelry and 700bliss.
We are honoured to have Moor Mother bring her powerful message to the Supersonic Stage this June as Robert Aiki Lowe’s guest curation, following 3 days in the The MOOG Sound Lab as our artist in residence, hosted by Royal Birmingham Conservatoire. Watch her below speaking with Moog Music Inc on using sound as an agent of resistance.
We are hugely excited to announce that MX World will be supporting Matana Roberts and Kelly Jayne Jones in their upcoming Supersonic Presents performance in May. This event will be hosted at Centrala, Birmingham, in conjunction with OUTLANDS experimental music initiative.
By combining traditional methods and styles of song writing, sampling, sound collage and audio-processing techniques, Mx World evokes a sense of space, texture and movement through sound. Music and performance is approached as a means of escapism, fantasy and catharsis for both the listener and performer, with the London based artist (aka Poppy Tibbetts) creating atmospheric, experimental pop music with a powerful vocal presence.
“…continually push and alter limitations and expectations of what the genre of metal is and what it has the chance to become.”– The Line of Best Fit
During the Summer of 2002 at an Earth First rendezvous in Washington State, guitarist Nathan Weaver was inspired to create a band that merged a Cascadian eco-spiritual awareness with the misanthropic Norwegian eruptions of the 90’s. The band envisioned would strive to create a mythic space where artist and listener could strip away the mundane and tap into a more mysterious, transcendent consciousness: this is Wolves In The Throne Room.
Their latest release ‘Thrice Woven’ announces the band’s return to black metal with a story of death and rebirth, and, as you’d expect, the record is an ambitious collection dead-eyed chorales, twisted black metal bursts and grayscale, field recording ambience. From their inception the band have dealt in tremolo-picked guitar lines, deathly folk pieces, and wordless synthesizer drones alike, but within their discordant sounds a grand spaciousness is unified like a cavernous echo. The effect of guitarists Nathan Weaver, Aaron Weaver and Kody Keyworth on stage is mesmerising- a perfect reflection of the dark psychedelia of the band’s work. Their most recent soundings are more engrossed in the raw and earthy tones of their earlier sets, with their Supersonic performance this year promising to be a masterclass in atmospheric black metal.
Indeed, Wolves In The Throne Room have become one of the most potent, highly regarded bands in extreme music. Through re-imagining black metal as an ode to rain storms, wood smoke and the wild energies of the Pacific Northwest, the listener encounters crystalline metal riffs with ritualistic laments: a connecting of the musical and the magical.
Watch them below performing live at Manchester venue Rebellion last year, and don’t miss this experience at Supersonic Fest 2018.
HAPPY RECORD STORE DAY GOOD PEOPLE!
Here’s a couple of NEW releases from our Supersonic 2018 artists you should be purchasing or pre-ordering right now:
The Ex, 27 PASSPORTS
Shirley Collins, THE BALLAD OF SHIRLEY COLLINS
Get supporting the independent music scene! With thanks to the labels & stores keeping it alive!
“Angelic vocal samples, modular synths, sketchy, dissonant hammond riffs, flutes, tablas and unplaceable instruments are manipulated and exploited to their full psychotropic effect.”– Gold Flake Paint
Cathy Lucas (Orlando, Fanfarlo, Innerspace Orchestra), drummer Valentina Magaletti (Tomaga, Raime, Neon Neon) and bassist Susumu Mukai (aka Zongamin), with Phil M.F.U. (Man From Uranus) on strange sounds and filmmaker/visual artist Elliott Arndt on flute and percussion.
Separately, each member has been experimenting with the sonic unknown for a decade or more; together they’ve been breathing new life into mystic electronica and psychic groove since their inception in 2015. The London ensemble- under a name inspired by the absorption of Cathy Lucas’ identical sister whilst in utero- have since become known for their marrying of oblique English pop with sweeps of funk and arkestral sounds. Their acclaimed debut album ‘Choose Your Own Adventure’ was released with Soundway Records in 2016, challenging the listener to explore a realm of sounds and sonic influences few would consider putting together.
Drawing on sounds outside of the usual pop vocabulary, the group use forgotten drum machines, home-made electronics, vibraphones, tablas, and harp to invoke the esoteric psychedelia of lost soundtracks, radiophonic experiments and minimal music orchestras. Under the guidance of producer Malcolm Catto (Heliocentrics, DJ Shadow, The Gaslamp Killer), the group brings a distinctive experience to the Supersonic stage.
Sarah Angliss in the Moog Sound Lab 2015
We are pleased to announce two very exciting opportunities for artists to take part in Supersonic Festival 2018
Open call: Supersonic Festival Residency, Moog Sound Lab 2018
We are delighted to announce an open call for artists to spend time in-residence at the Moog Sound Lab, hosted by the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire in partnership with the Supersonic Festival 2018 between 4 – 15 June, 2018.
A 2 day residency opportunity with support from a technician and £300 fee
Dates for the residency: 7/8 or 14/15 June
Deadline for applications: 4 May (successful applicants will be informed 9 May)
To download the application pack see – HERE
Rachel Lowe – ‘Revolving Woman’ 2008 Video still Courtesy the artist
Open call: ‘FIND YOUR WORLD IN OURS’ Digital artwork commission for Supersonic Festival 2018 and Ikon Gallery.
We are delighted to announce an open call for an artist to produce a new digital moving image artwork for large-scale projection at Supersonic Festival 2018 and for screens at the Ikon Gallery in June 2018.
Supersonic Festival presents ‘Find your world in ours’ a series of newly commissioned digital artworks. The project developed with artist Mark Titchner continues his interest in the intersection between visual art and experimental music. These works will be presented both as a series of large-scale video projections during the festival (22-24 June) and on screens at Ikon Gallery. The successful applicant will have their work included within a programme of new artist commissions curated by Mark Titchner.
Artists include Anna Barriball, Sean Dower, Mustafa Hulusi, Rachel Lowe and Mark Titchner.
We are looking for a new moving image digital artwork that explores these themes in an original and dynamic way: Ritual / Repetition / Collective experience / Transcendence
Fees: £1,250 to support the production of a new work for the project.
+ Technical support is also available for the production of the work for those applicants who may not have produced digital moving image work before.
A weekend pass for the Supersonic 2018 Festival, travel expenses, accommodation.
Deadline for applications: 4 May (successful applicants will be informed 9 May)
To download the application pack see – HERE
In collaboration with MAC Birmingham, Capsule had the honour of hosting a Q&A with Slits members Tessa Pollitt, Palm Olive and director William E. Badgley following the screening of Badgley’s 5 year effort Here to be Heard: The Story of The Slits. A sell out show, the evening promised and delivered on an immensely inspiring, powerful feature celebrating the lives and work of the band and its members, following the pioneering godmothers of ‘Punky Reggae’ from their inception in 1976 to their untimely end in 2010 with the death of lead vocalist Ari Up.
The Slits were part of one of the most fascinating musical, social and political movements of the last century. It was a scene which was inherently provocative, a revolutionary product of a particular social climate, with punk scenes in Britain appearing the most political. The England of 1979 was bristled with discontent, crippled by strikes and blackouts and ruled by prejudice and inequality. It was a world which to many felt out of reach and out of touch, no less so in the world of music which had since been chorused by pop, folk, glam and soft rock. The eruption of something volcanic was almost inevitable.
Despite being an integral part of the movement, it is a tragedy that The Slits have not received the same attention as the likes of The Clash or The Sex Pistols. If an all girl rock band remains- ridiculously- a relatively rare thing today, their reception in the late 70’s meant that these girls were radicals before playing their first note. Whether it can be related to gender or not, the gleefully obnoxious antics of the group were intimidating in their in-your-face defiance, demeaning to conventions of how anyone was expected to behave in society- let alone young women.
Amongst other punk groups The Slits insisted on playing to their own beat, being amongst the first bands on that scene to draw comparisons and inspiration from reggae music and culture for example. They were the first group of female musicians doing it on their own terms, with a sheer inability to compromise or sell themselves on their sex appeal that proved to be a major inspiration to the Riot Grrl movement in the 1990s.
Their dedication to the experimental and authentic is cornerstone to so many women in music today, a fearlessness that is no less present than for those performing at Supersonic Festival this year. The warping and defiance of identity seen in Gazelle Twin for example, the austere power of Shirley Collins‘ ballads being another; an influential part of the 1960’s with her folk-rock, storytelling showing an honest, stripped down style reminiscent of The Slits’ own approach to singing about what they found to be true. The striking work of Moor Mother bears a similar anger and protest about injustice, using this defiance to face social and political issues relevant to contemporary society.
The Slits stand as a ferocious force in herstory. We are hugely thankful to them for what they have meant to women in the music industry, and for what they will inspire in generations to come.
SEE GAZELLE TWIN, SHIRLEY COLLINS, MOOR MOTHER AND MORE SUPERSONIC WOMEN AT SUPERSONIC FESTIVAL THIS JUNE!
“In sonorous inebriations, Housewives tatters mental matter into an oblivion, from minimalist punches and strokes, and a full on assault of sonic permutation.” – Tiny Mix Tapes
HOUSEWIVES, a London based experimental four piece, create music which straddles the line between noise and sound. Austere and rhythmically charged, their music has a distinctively cold, minimalist edge; abrasive guitars blend with droning bass lines and propulsive, relentless drums.
Housewives have gone way further than the majority of their scene in changing the game for themselves, and in doing so have gained major plaudits from the independent music press and the British scene as a whole. After a sold out tape on Faux Discx they released their debut album Work with Hands In The Dark, Blank Editions and Negative Days. A split release with touring partners Massicot was shortly followed by a second live album FF061116 released with Rocket Recordings in August 2017.
Their music abandons any conventional algorithms of sound, and in turn take a piece from full-scale conversation into a minimalist dialogue between just a few instruments, musical passages, or ideas. They demonstrate a careful love for detail, creating intelligent, smaller sound structures which powerfully deliver. They serve as a great reminder of what a powerful weapon rhythm can be when approached in a really creative and unorthodox manner.
Their live approach is anti-performance, using a stark and minimal aesthetic coupled with intense and powerful compositions. Often using home made instruments, they explore unique sonic textures creating a challenging and progressive sound.
It’s the kind of music you listen to after a long bad day; music that will propel you into an infinitely better night. BE SURE NOT TO MISS THEM AT SUPERSONIC FESTIVAL THIS YEAR.
“really is glorious…” – Mary Anne Hobbs, BBC6 Music
To label Andrea Belfi’s status as a percussionist would be a modest descriptor. Described by BBC6 Music’s Gilles Peterson as “a cult drama”, over the course of his career Belfi has developed a unique, hypnotic style of drumming, working with the instrument across realms of electronic music to create an immersive, textured sound world.
Perhaps best known for his work with Nils Frahm’s nonkeen group, this Berlin-based Italian musician has held a variety of outfits with more than fifty collaborative records on labels such as Room40 and Miasma. Continuously proving himself to be a fascinating solo artist in his own right, May last year saw the release of his seventh studio album Ore on FLOAT Records, a striking mix of improvised drums and electronic programming intended by the artist to have the feel of a live performance.
Having played the drums from the age of 14, Belfi’s experience as an artist has continuously grown from his diverse artistic involvement, from playing in numerous punk bands to being an art student in Milan. Moody, obscure, but in very structured, rhythmical journeys, Belfi commits to creating and constantly developing a unique sound, with the interweaving of percussive counterparts with electronica driving forward a sonic architecture with complex patterns, conveyed with the simplicity of an acoustic drum set. Recording drums over electronic patterns for Ore sets a hypnotic mood with transforms the instrument. He plays with the timeless art of variation and repetition, and his recordings deliver on transporting the listener into the mesmerising experience consistent of Belfi’s live performances.
For FLOAT’s Piano Day 2018 earlier this year, Andrea Belfi combined his signature methods of percussion and electronics to create a hugely special one of collaboration with pianist and composer Sebastian Plano. With minimum preparation time, these Piano Day collaborations are thrilling experiences for both the audience and performers alike.
Experience Andrea Belfi’s unequalled live performances at this year’s Supersonic Festival 2018.
TICKETS AVAILABLE HERE.
HUGE THANKS to all that came and conquered!
We were honoured to play host to the ever raucous Youth Man, Grey Hairs and Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs at The Hare and Hounds Kings Heath last night.
With thanks to the night’s attendees, the Supersonic Presents event delivered on a fully amped night of stormy, demonic sounds within the uniquely inspired atmosphere that our treasured Supersonic audiences bring.
Kicking off with some destructive punk from Youth Man, the night started as it was to go on with the Brummies proving why they are dubbed “the loudest live band in the UK”. Performed within the set was there newly unleashed track ‘I Don’t Know’ , taken from their upcoming EP with Alcopop! Records which will be announced later this year.
Followed by Nottingham’s Grey Hairs, the stage took a life of it’s own with raucous energy and powerful male/female vocals, recalling everything from the Stooges to Status Quo, from The Birthday Party to Black Sabbath, and bringing a surge of unique spirit.
And finally, bringing the room to a heavy-trance like state came Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs with an epic, authoritative close. It was an honour to have these swines return to Supersonic, and we’re eager to see more of the exciting projects they have on the horizon.
Keep an eye out for our upcoming gigs via news and socials, see HERE for tickets ON SALE NOW.
Join us for podcast no.5 hosted by Anna Palmer and Alice [with the facts] Tomlinson. Hear tracks from the new artists to be revealed for this year’s line up including our guest curator – Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe and legendary folk singer – Shirley Collins, plus many more! As well as all this, we catch up with some Pigs from Newcastle ahead of their Supersonic Presents…show next week (April 11th) at the Hare and Hounds, Birmingham. Let us know if you’re coming along?
ROUND UP OF THE CURRENT LINE UP:
Andrea Belfi | Croww | Daniel Higgs | DEAFKIDS | Faka | Gazelle Twin | Goat (JP) | Group A | Housewives | Joasihno | Mario Batkovic | Moor Mother | Shirley Collins | Terminal Cheesecake | The Ex | Vanishing Twin | Wetware | Wolves In The Throne Room | Yunohana Variations – YoshimiO (Boredoms, OOIOO), Susie Ibarra & Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe | Yves Tumor and more to be announced
ROUND UP OF THE CALENDAR:
Wednesday 11th April – Pigs x7 // Grey Hairs // Youth Man @Hare and Hounds Kings Heath
Tuesday 17th April – Here to be heard – The Story of the Slits @MAC
Friday 18th May – Matana Roberts & Kelly Jayne Jones @Centrala
Friday 25th May – Workshop with Kelly Jayne Jones @BIMM
Thursday 31st May – Dorcha // Rattle // Adrena Adrena @Hare and Hounds Kings Heath
22nd – 24th June – Supersonic Festival @Digbeth, Birmingham
We’ve loads to pack your ears and calendar with, peruse around this here website for more info and for tickets to any of our upcoming events, including Supersonic Festival June 22nd – 24th.
Supersonic is produced by Capsule:
Unit 317, Zellig
Gibb Street
Birmingham UK
B9 4AT
