Supersonic is partnering with Faber Social to present acclaimed author Rob Chapman talking about his new book Psychedelia and Other Colours, that explores in crystalline detail the history, precedents and cultural impact of LSD. From the earliest experiments in painting with light and immersive environments to the thriving avant- garde scene that existed in San Francisco even before the Grateful Dead and the Fillmore Auditorium. In the UK, he documents an entirely different history, and one that has never been told before. It has its roots in fairy tales and fairgrounds, the music hall and the dead of Flanders fields, in the Festival of Britain and that peculiarly British strand of surrealism that culminated in the Magical Mystery Tour. Sitars and Sergeant Pepper, surfadelica and the Soft Machine, light shows and love-ins – the mind-expanding effects of acid were to redefine popular culture as we know it. Psychedelia and Other Colours documents these utopian reverberations – and the dark side of their moon – in a perfect portrait.

A Folded Path – Circumstance
Fri 12 – Sat 13 June

Circumstance are bringing a unique performance, A Folded Path to Birmingham as part of  Supersonic festival in partnership with BCMG. The performance invites the audience to become the city’s orchestra, creating soundscapes while walking on a choreographed journey through the streets.

A Folded Path is a pedestrian speaker symphony, a soundtrack for the city, carried through the streets by you, experienced by everyone it passes.
30 custom-built, location-sensitive portable loudspeakers create a stunning and evocative cinematic layer over the city streets, each playing a different element of the music circumstance have composed. One might be playing a voice, another a sweeping violin or glistening electronic tone.

The GPS position of the speaker causes different sections of the composition to be played, so the structure of the work resonates with the environments it passes through. The speakers are highly directional so the movement of the people within the group changes the acoustic relationship between them, the audience become the orchestra.

In small groups, you will take different routes through the city, coming together at points to create moments of harmony and resonance.

Booking info:
To book your free place email russell[at]capsule.org.uk with ‘A Folded Path’ in the title and the time slot you’d like. Each performance is for 30 participants only.

Friday:  5.15pm and 7.45pm
Saturday: 2.45pm and 5pm
The performance last about an hour and involves walking so please wear appropriate footwear.
The city centre location will be revealed on sign up

Liima, the new improvisational outfit formed from members of Efterklang and foremost Finnish experimental percussionist, Tatu Rönkkö, will be streaming a live recording of their concert at ‘The Lake in Jazzhouse’ in Copenhagen on March 26th 2015. The concert featured new music written in three residencies in Finland, Berlin and Istanbul. We highly recommend you tune in for their frankly gorgeous musical delights.

Listen to ‘Liima – Live from The Lake in Jazzhouse’ on Friday 1 May at 14:00 CET (13:00 GMT) on www.thelakeradio.com 

Capsule’s internationally renowned festival runs 11-14 June 2015 and there are plenty of opportunities to get involved as a volunteer.

Supersonic has secured its experimental reputation with over 10 years of 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, Supersonic thrives on the spirit of adventure and discovery. Our 2015 Line up includes:

Apostille / Afework Nigussie / Circuit Des Yeux / Eternal Tapestry / Flamingods / Gazelle Twin / Happy Meals / Jiří Wehle / Liima – Efterklang + Tatu Rönkkö / Liturgy / Phil Tyler / Ravioli Me Away / Rhodri Davies / Richard Dawson /  Selvhenter / Sex Swing / Six Organs of Admittance/ Slow Magic / The Pop Group / The Bug vs Dylan Carlson / Tomaga! / Wildbirds and Peacedrums / Will Gregory Moog Ensemble / Woven Skull + more TBA

We are looking for a dedicated team of Volunteers to help deliver Supersonic over the festival (11-14^th June)

We would expect a minimum of 15 hours over the festival period in exchange for a weekend wristband.

HOW TO APPLY:

Please click on the link to fill out our online form, or email our Volunteer Coordinator, Sean, on volunteer@capsule.org.uk

Deadline for applications is Friday 15 May. 

NB/ unfortunately we can only consider applicants who are 18 years old and over.

We’ve long been intrigued by the mysterious utopian world that Flamingods conjure, so we’re delighted to discover that founder Kamal Rasool has put together a wonderful music mix, which you can listen to here.

Shedding light on the Flamingods’ dazzling influences and including tracks by Alice Coltrane, Chancha Vìa Circuito and Fela Kuti amongst others, the mix was created for the Safina Radio Project as part of this year’s Venice Biennale Opening Season. Kamal also writes about the reasons why he has chosen each track and as we suspected, the band’s relationship to music from far flung corners of the globe is complex, exploring the role that music plays in shaping identity, intercultural relationships and dismantling hierarchies.

Flamingods play Supersonic Festival and the Supersonic Kids Gig this year, 11-14 June. Tickets on sale now via The Ticketsellers/See Tickets/Milque & Muhle and Plugd

Apostille is the solo outlet of Night School Records founder, Michael Kasparis. A darkly expressive synth pop freewheel, Apostille is, like some of the finest pop music, both a musing on and an antidote to oppression. Pleasingly unpredictable, humorous and totally absorbing live, we’re delighted to have Apostille join us for Supersonic. Today he released his debut album, Powerless, so we thought we’d celebrate by publishing a mighty fine interview he did with Poppy Twist. Thank you Poppy for coming up with the questions.

You can stream Powerless by Apostille at The Quietus right now.

Apostille interview:

You are given the opportunity to write a new soundtrack for an existing film. Which film do you pick and why?

The Breakfast Club. I could pick something more ‘worthy’ or heady but that’d be too easy. I’d find it more interesting making music for something that isn’t as open to interpretation. Doing music for Solaris or Valerie would be cool and all that but I’d probably get more out of trying to better Simple Minds.

Plug an artist, artwork or idea you think deserves more recognition.

Adam and Jonathan Bohman – aka The Bohman Brothers. Adam blew my mind years ago at a house show, it was an incredible performance with improv, noise, surrealism, concrete poetry. His genius is to bring a sense of humour, of the truly unexpected, into something [improvised music] that’s often characterised as dry and alienating. You don’t have to be indoctrinated into the meta-language of improvisation to enjoy it.

Analogue or digital?

Who cares? Oh wait. Loads of people. I don’t. I like ‘gear’ but some of the best things I’ve ever seen have been people singing along to their iphones. I appreciate people have strong opinions on the matter but I think technological elitism in either direction just gets in the way. I’m always suspicious of any thinking that is so firmly set in stone. I swing all ways.

You’re curating a dream festival line-up and can pick any artists living or dead. Who makes the cut?

It would have to be a week-long affair. The whole Night School roster of course. Strawberry Switchblade would headline. Les Rallizes Denudes. Brainbombs. Farley Jackmaster Keith. Depeche Mode. Shizuka. Flower
Travelling Band. Rudimentary Peni. PIG DNA. Lebenden Toten. Fad Gadget. Raime. Crisis. Aine O’Dwyer. Paul Parker. Sun Ra Arkestra. Fatal Error. Germs. Coil. David S. Ware. The Carousel. Madonna in the 80s and early 90s. Pennycress. Dwellings. Frau. Kate Bush. Design A Wave. Kano (the disco not grime guy) Hijokaidan. Nas but only Illmatic era. Markos Vamvakaris. I have to go now but that’ll do for starters.

Tickets to this year’s Supersonic Festival are available now so don’t miss out – via The Ticketsellers/See Tickets/Milque & Muhle and Plugd

The New York based Observer magazine has published a very entertaining interview with Liturgy’s Hunter Hunt-Hendrix. Hunt-Hendrix is a fascinating figure who we love to love and some die hard black metal fans love to hate. His  audacious ideas have occasionally made for moments of turbulence in Liturgy’s seven year existence, but luckily for us the band have weathered the internet storms of enraged purists to return with brilliant new album, The Ark Work. Read the full interview here.

Liturgy perform at Supersonic on Saturday evening. Tickets available now via The Ticketsellers/See Tickets/Milque & Muhle and Plugd

Watch a live rendition of ‘Follow’, from The Ark Work, below:

Angharad Davies is a violinist, improviser and composer. She’s a specialist in the art of ‘preparing’ her violin, adding objects or materials to it to extend its sound making properties.

Angharad has performed at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, BBC Proms,  is an associate artist at Cafe Oto and has played live with Tony Conrad in the Turbine Room at the Tate Modern. She has collaborated extensively with artists from around the world, including Kazuko Hohki, Tisha Mukarji, Lina Lapelyte, Dominic Lash, Rie Nakajima and Julia Eckhardt.

Listen to an extract from her piece, ‘Pizz, Nail File and Fingers Study’:

I’ve been very lucky to have been invited to play music around the world. One thing I noticed, though, as I toured, was that they were all escapist, a one-way communication stream. I wanted to discover how music can matter and not just be this escapist thing that middle-class white people consume.

Holly Herndon recently took part in a double interview (alongside Texan born, Berlin based producer, Lotic) for the excellently named Subbacultcha magazine. The killer quote, above, is taken from the interview and pretty much encapsulates why we are so excited for Holly’s performance at Supersonic this year. Holly clearly says what she sees and is one of the few voices in music challenging the status quo as she encounters it. We hope you’re ready to take part in a two-way communication stream.

Read the full piece here. You can also check out Holly’s video for ‘Interference’, taken off forthcoming album, Platform, below.

Tickets for Supersonic are available now.

Our most likely to be crowned the undiscovered gem in this year’s line up, vocal virtuoso Circuit des Yeux (aka Haley Fohr), has answered some questions for us. The interview kicks off a series of artist profiles created especially for us by writer, fine art student and member of Birmingham DIY duo Table Scraps, Poppy Twist. We’d like to thank Poppy for lending her talents to us for the run up to Supersonic.

Stream ‘Fantasise the Scene’, a new song from Circuit des Yeux’s forthcoming album for Thrill Jockey, In Plain Speech, here. The perfect soundtrack to the words below.

Circuit des Yeux interview:

Supersonic is proud to be based in the Home of Metal. What is your hometown the ‘home’ of?

My hometown isn’t home to much. My high school mascot was the Jefferson High School “Bronchos”. Supposedly the custodian was drunk when he was painting “Bronchos” on the front of the school, hence the misspelling. The staff decided to keep it and the town was taught that the ‘h’ in ‘Bronchos’ stood for “heart”.

Who are you most excited to see at Supersonic?

I am very excited to see Holly Herndon. From what I can gather from interviews, she seems to be full of interesting ideas, and possibly a nice person, too.

What can pull you out of a dreaded creative block?

For me, minimal improvisation is the key to getting out of a creative rut. I’ll lock myself in a room with a guitar and knife, or an amplifier with no input. Sometimes I’ll write a whole track where I just sing one vowel. Improvisation through constraints always takes me through to the other side of a creative block.

You’re curating a dream festival line-up and can pick any artists living or dead. Who makes your cut?

All female line-up: Cynthia Dall, Lisa Suckdog, Kim Gordon, Yoko Ono, Linda Sharrock, Diamanda Galas, Erica Pomerance, Bjork, Catherine Ribeiro, Grace Slick, Josephine Foster, Christina Carter, Sandra Bell, Kath Bloom, Marissa Anderson, Noveller, Joni Mitchell, Sandy Denny, Patti Smith, Patty Waters, Emmylou Harris, etc. All in their prime.

Tickets to this year’s Supersonic Festival are available now so don’t miss out – via The Ticketsellers/See Tickets/Milque & Muhle and Plugd

The Times guide to the 50 best events this summer – in at no.2 Supersonic “For Curious Audiences, announces the poster for this inner-city Birmingham festival. From Ethiopian wandering minstrel Afework Niguisse to Oregon space rockers Eternal Tapestry, this is a celebration of the expressive, challenging and generally out there music.”

Don’t miss out on tickets – now available via The Ticketsellers/See Tickets/Milque & Muhle and Plugd

We’re happy to announce that this year Supersonic will host a Dirty Electronics Workshop at the festival. Weekend ticket holders can sign up now to take part in the workshop, which will take place from 3 – 5pm on Saturday 13 June. Participants will devise and make their very own synthesiser/ sound object. It will feature printed circuit board artwork and a DIY piezo flared horn that omits bursts of noise and generative electronic bell-like sounds.  It also comes with a rustic stick beater.

How to sign up
If you are a weekend ticket holder, you can sign up to the Dirty Electronics workshop at this year’s Supersonic Festival and become part of the Dirty Electronics Ensemble. There is also an additional charge to cover the cost of the materials (£34). Places are limited to just 15 so book your place now: email ‘dirty electronics’ in the title to russell[at]capsule.org.uk

A Bit of Background
Musician and composer John Richards coined the terms Dirty Electronics and Punktronics to describe his approach to electronic music, which is free from corporate technology restraints and focuses on a DIY ethos. John has been using this approach since 1999 to explore composition and performance with self-made instruments and found objects.

In 2003, John formed the Dirty Electronics Ensemble, a large collective predominantly made up of workshop participants. Their activity focuses on shared experiences and ritual and social interaction through devising and building instruments.  Following the creation of the instruments, the group take to the stage to play and explore them. In Dirty Electronics, process and performance are inseparably bound, with the whole concept beginning on the workbench.

The group have collaborated with and performed pieces written by artists such as Merzbow, Nicholas Bullen (Napalm Death), Chris Carter (Throbbing Gristle), Dominic Butler (Factory Floor) and Anat Ben-David (Chicks On Speed), amongst many others. Workshops and performances have been commissioned worldwide including by Barcelona’s Sonar Festival, Southbank Centre, Bent Festival (Los Angeles), Tokyo University Of The Arts, Berlin’s University Of The Arts and IRCAM (Paris).

The Mute Synth
In 2011, Dirty Electronics were commissioned by Mute Records (home of Swans, Liars, Ben Frost, Can, Nick Cave, New Order and Depeche Mode) to create a handheld synth with artwork designed by Adrian Shaughnessy:

In 2014, a follow up, the Mute Synth II, was released accompanied by an album featuring artists associated with Dirty Electronics and Mute Records.

A number of other artwork-sound circuits have been developed by Dirty Electronics including a 20th Anniversary synth for Sonar Festival and circuits inspired by the work of William Morris for the National Portrait Gallery.

Supersonic are beyond excited to host this first time live collaboration of The Bug vs Dylan Carlson of Earth. It’s a collaboration that simply cannot be understated. Dylan Carlson and Kevin Martin are both long established figures presiding over the radical fringes of heavy music, holding the attention of curious minds and audiences for over twenty years worldwide. Carlson, the mainstay of Seattle’s Earth, has created a volume of daring work that originates in distorted drone and expands over cinematic Americana, folkloric balladry and proto-rock, whilst Martin (as The Bug, Techno Animal, Ice, King Midas Sound) gained notoriety producing hulking hyrbids of dancehall, dub and techno that are unparalleled in tactility and dark aggression. As The Bug vs Earth, they released Boa / Cold for Ninjatune in December (listen here), and it is with great pleasure we can announce that they will be performing together for the first time ever, especially for Supersonic Festival. Following this performance, The Bug shall be joined on stage by Flowdan to round up proceedings on Saturday night in style.

The Bug vs Dylan Carlson add to an unmissable line-up, which includes the avant-pop cerebral sound manipulator Holly Herndon (as announced last week on Stuart Maconie’s Freak Zone), the anticipated opening concert with the Will Gregory Moog Ensemble, post punk provocateurs The Pop Group, Liima, a new collaborative quartet formed of Danish indie-pop trio Efterklang and Finland’s finest improvisational percussionist Tatu Rönkkö, post-everything black metal lone wolves Liturgy and label mates, psych rock explorers Eternal Tapestry. Six Organs Of Admittance (Ben Chasny) will be performing, dissecting and demonstrating The Hexadic System whilst other welcome additions include the uncompromising and unmissable Gazelle Twin, and  Flamingods who shall be bringing a welcome and vibrant splash of day-glo to the main festival programme, alongside Swedish maxi-experimentalist duo Wildbirds & Peacedrums, the Franco-Scottish hedonism of Glasgow’s Happy Meals, super-kinetic London future jazz outfit Tomaga and the anonymous sundrenched sounds of Slow Magic. We can also highly recommend grit’n’synth solo punk Apostille, the brightly coloured prickly post-pfunk of Ravioli Me Away, maxi-percussionist Danes Selvhenter and mysterious organ and saxophone possessing super-duper-group Sex Swing. From Northern Ireland, manic, droning interpreters of local mythology and instrumentation Woven Skull and the striking Circuit Des Yeux.

On Sunday 14 June Richard Dawson curates an afternoon show named after his infamous podcast the DELIGHT IS RIGHT. With a number of rare UK performances by artists handpicked by Dawson, the line-up reflects the diversity of sounds that feed into his own songwriting which includes performances by  Afework Nigussie, Jiří Wehle, Rhodri Davies, Phil Tyler and Angharad Davies.

Weekend Tickets are available HERE

It’s a collaboration that simply cannot be understated. Dylan Carlson and Kevin Martin are both long established figures presiding over the radical fringes of heavy music, holding the attention of curious minds and audiences for over twenty years worldwide. Carlson, the mainstay of Seattle’s Earth, has created a volume of daring work that originates in distorted drone and expands over cinematic Americana, folkloric balladry and proto-rock, whilst Martin (as The Bug, Techno Animal, Ice, King Midas Sound) gained notoriety producing hulking hyrbids of dancehall, dub and techno that are unparalleled in tactility and dark aggression. As The Bug vs Earth, they released Boa / Cold for Ninjatune in December (listen here), and it is with great pleasure we can announce that they will be performing together for the first time ever, especially for Supersonic Festival. Following this performance, The Bug shall be joined on stage by Flowdan to round up proceedings on Saturday night in style.

Bees in a Tin 2015 – call for contributors

CALL FOR EXCITING & INTERESTING THINGS! Do you do exciting and (or) interesting things? Then this is for you!

Bees in a Tin is a gathering happening in Birmingham on Friday 12th of June 2015 for interesting and exciting people who make unique interfaces for the world around them. This year it’s happening in partnership with Supersonic as part of their annual festival of experimental music and art.

And we’re currently looking for people to present… interesting and exciting things, experiences, performances, talks, artefacts, ideas and other nouns, at the event.

If you have devised (or are devising) a novel way of interacting with your surroundings that makes people stop, think or just go “wow!”, then we would like to be in the same room as you. Your project could be a performance piece; guided walk; interactive object; data visualisation; science experiment or something completely different. Surprise us!

It doesn’t have to be arts-based and it doesn’t have to be finished: we’re looking for things that invite us to consider our position in relationship to other things differently.

Full details and the application form are available at manyandvaried.org.uk/bees_2015_call/

Deadline: 5pm, 29th April, 2015

We’ve made a gem-filled playlist to celebrate our swish new line up additions to Supersonic Festival 2015.

Last week we announced that cerebral sound manipulator Holly Herndon will be moving our minds and bodies with her electronic anomalies. The playlist kicks off with her divine Chorus from last year, before taking you on a curiouser and curiouser journey through our Japanese puzzle box of line up delights. Supersonic Festival tickets are on sale now and sold out in record time last year so don’t miss out.

Enjoy!

1. Holly Herndon – Chorus
2. Gazelle Twin – Guts
3. Apostille – Good Man
4. Ravioli Me Away – Cat Call
5. Sex Swing – Night Time Worker
6. Selvhenter – Styrtdyk
7. Woven Skull – Dawn Of Ends
8. Circuit Des Yeux – Nova 88
9. Rhodri Davies – Soaked Ruins Of A Raft

There are plenty of opportunities to get involved as a volunteer at Supersonic Festival Ltd Edition 2015.

Supersonic has secured its experimental reputation with over 10 years of 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, Supersonic thrives on the spirit of adventure and discovery.

Our 2015 Line up includes:

Apostille / Afework Nigussie / Circuit Des Yeux / Eternal Tapestry / Flamingods / Gazelle Twin / Happy Meals / Jiří Wehle / Liima – Efterklang + Tatu Rönkkö / Liturgy / Phil Tyler / Ravioli Me Away / Rhodri Davies / Richard Dawson / Selvhenter / Sex Swing / Six Organs of Admittance/ Slow Magic / The Pop Group / Tomaga / Wildbirds and Peacedrums / Will Gregory Moog Ensemble / Woven Skull

We are looking a dedicated team of Photography Volunteers to help document Supersonic over the festival weekend (11 -14 June )

Volunteers must have experience in photographing intimate live music events, have their own equipment and the knowledge and ability needed to capture the performances and the festival crowd in a creative and visually dynamic way. Knowledge of flash photography is also desirable.

This year our media partners include: The Quietus, The Skinny and Fact, so this is a great opportunity to develop your professional portfolio.

We will ask you to provide an edited selection of images taken while working at the festival. We would need you to provide high and low resolution jpgs to the organizer, with permission to use for marketing purposes, no later than one week after the event.

We would expect a minimum of 15 hours over the festival period in exchange for a weekend wristband.

The festival programme runs:

Friday      12^th  :     8.00pm – 2.00am  

Saturday  13^th  :     4.00pm – 3.00am 

Sunday     14^th :     3.00pm – 8.00pm  

HOW TO APPLY:

If you have are interested in being a volunteer photographer at this year’s festival please contact our Volunteer coordinator Sean on email volunteer@capsule.org.uk  with “ SS Photography 2015” in the title of your email and include a CV which includes a link to your online portfolio.

Deadline for applications is Friday 1 May.

Unfortunately we can only consider applicants who are 18 years old and over.

This Sunday BBC 6 Music’s Stuart Maconie is focusing the spotlight on Supersonic Festival on his weird and wonderful show, Freakier Zone

The special will feature a selection of choice tracks by artists performing at this Supersonic, selected by the festival’s Creative Director, Lisa Meyer. Lisa will also be in conversation with Stuart, taking us through her choices and telling us exactly why she is so excited about Supersonic 2015’s programme. Those of you who caught her sludge special with Stuart last year will know you’re in for a treat.

Listen to the show live on digital radio or on the BBC 6 Music website on Easter Sunday at midnight.

Artists playing at Supersonic include Holly Herndon/The Pop Group/Gazelle Twin/Liturgy/Richard Dawson and many more. Tickets available now.

Holly Herndon was announced as a headliner at Supersonic Festival on Stuart Maconie’s BBC 6 Music show, Freakzone, last Sunday. The show features an interview with Holly and two songs from Platform, her soon to be released first album with 4AD.

Later, Stuart also talked to Will Gregory, who will be performing with his Moog Ensemble at Supersonic. Will and Stuart discuss some very topical issues that we’ve been passionately debating at Capsule HQ: do you pronounce Moog to rhyme with ‘vogue’ or ‘moo’? And what do you do when your cloak keeps getting in the way of activities? You’ll just have to tune in to have these burning questions answered.

The show is still available to listen to here. Tickets are now on sale for Supersonic Festival 2015.

We’re ecstatic that Stuart Maconie’s Freak Zone show on BBC 6 Music was dedicated to Supersonic Festival last night, with interviews with Will Gregory from Goldfrapp about his Moog Ensemble who will be opening the festival as well as announcing an exciting new addition to the line up by way of Holly Herndon. You can have a listen HERE
And Lisa Meyer, Supersonic’s director will be on the Freakier Zone next week introducing some of the line up and talking about the festival.

Tickets for Supersonic can be purchased here

Supersonic Opportunity: Moog Sound Lab Residencies

Open call for Moog Sound Lab Residencies

Hosted at Birmingham City University in partnership with the Supersonic Festival, and Moog Music Inc.

Supersonic Festival are delighted to be partnering with the internationally renowned Moog Synthesisers as part of their new UK initiative (Moog Sound Lab) and Birmingham City University to offer opportunities for regional artists to have access to the unique Lab which will be based at the Parkside campus.

The Moog Sound Lab is focused on organic experimentation and is a unique opportunity for artists to explore analog sound-scaping, synthesis and effects.

“The butterflies-inducing bassline on Donna Summer’s I Feel Love, the unmistakable melody wiggling through New Order’s Blue Monday, the sound of the Millennium Falcon taking off in Star Wars, the sounds of the guns in the new Star Trek movies, most of Kraftwerk’s seminal 1974 album Autobahn and a pretty much endless list of other game changing songs and records from the last four decades all share one thing. The greatest pioneer of electronic music wasn’t a musician, but an eccentric physicist with a longstanding love of taking things apart and putting them back together again. When Robert Moog (it rhymes with “vogue”) unveiled the Moog synthesiser to the world in 1964, he not only radically changed music, but culture itself.”

The lab moves to different venues – previously Pioneered at Rough Trade NYC – becoming a temporary residency space, offering a unique opportunity for artists to explore, experiment and create. A physical manifestation of the intersection of music, art and technology this offers a unique resource to artists to make new work.

To find out how to apply for a residency please contact sean[at]capsule.org.uk for application details

Hosted at Birmingham City University, in partnership with the Supersonic Festival and Moog Music Inc.

Supersonic Festival is delighted to be partnering with the internationally renowned Moog Sound Lab and Birmingham City University to create a four week artist residents programme, which will be based at the Parkside campus. The Moog Sound Lab is focused on organic experimentation and is a unique opportunity for artists to explore analog sound-scaping, synthesis and effects.

‘The butterflies-inducing bassline on Donna Summer’s I Feel Love, the unmistakable melody wiggling through New Order’s Blue Monday, the sound of the Millennium Falcon taking off in Star Wars, the sounds of the guns in the new Star Trek movies, most of Kraftwerk’s seminal 1974 album Autobahn and a pretty much endless list of other game changing songs and records from the last four decades all share one thing. The greatest pioneer of electronic music wasn’t a musician, but an eccentric physicist with a longstanding love of taking things apart and putting them back together again. When Robert Moog (it rhymes with “vogue”) unveiled the Moog synthesiser to the world in 1964, he not only radically changed music, but culture itself.’

The lab moves to different venues and was previously Pioneered at Rough Trade NYC. It becomes a temporary residency space, offering a unique opportunity for artists to explore, experiment and create. A physical manifestation of the intersection of music, art and technology, the lab offers a unique resource to artists to make new work.
moogsoundlab.uk

Artists include:

Sarah Angliss, an award winning composer, roboticist and historian of sound.

Gazelle Twin, the twisted Cronenberg-inspired persona of producer, composer and artist, Elizabeth Bernholz.

Free School are a Birmingham retro-futurist, mask-donning disco duo, exploring a unique fusion of Electro, House, Balearic and Kosmiche.

Seán Clancy, Lecturer in Composition at Birmingham Conservatoire will work in collaboration with Thomas Parkes to  develop a new composition built from a vocabulary of analogue sources and samples that will explores tensions between found and original material, between narrative and rupture, particularly as these might be seen to correspond to elite and vernacular values.

Balandino Di Donato will be exploring the Moog lab via touch less control and sound spatialisation as part of his  pioneering research into Integra Live technology.

Mike Dring  will produce a new soundscape based on his interdisciplinary interests from architecture to glitch art. He takes inspiration through field recordings or through interpreting the pattern of movement prescribed by the built environment.

Jason Nicholson reworks the principles of The Harmonograph to produce exquisite physical drawings that seek to illustrate the relationship between musical frequencies, mathematics, art, design and new and existing technologies.

Andy Pilsbury will be developing, Helix, a new interactive online platform that allows users to participate in a multifaceted art project combining high-speed photography, moving image and ethereal soundscapes to create surreal flourishing landscapes.

 Steven Chamberlain (Selloptape Cinema), sound artists Tom Tebby and  Justin Wiggan collaborate on Birmingham: Symphony of a Metropolis, an ambitious new soundtrack. The piece, or ‘city film essay’, is a re-working of the 1927 Walter Ruttman film, Berlin: Symphony of a Metropolis

The residency will take place at Birmingham City University’s Parkside campus. A multi-million pound centre of excellence in the heart of Birmingham’s Eastside development.   It will sit alongside the Faculty of Arts, Design and Media Graduate Shows 2015. www.bcu.ac.uk

Supersonic Festival are delighted to confirm that internationally versed sound manipulator Holly Herndon shall practice her neuro-dissecting electronic anomalies on patrons at this year’s event, in support of her recently announced second LP, Platform. Herndon has become a leading light in contemporary music by experimenting within the outer reaches of dance music and pop songwriting possibilities. Herndon makes music that is impossible to ignore and could be viewed as the 21st century’s answer to the protest singer, tackling a host of topics ranging from systemic inequality, surveillance states and neo-feudalism. Her tactile live shows recast the laptop as an untapped physical instrument, to be used in the limbo that links noise, dance, avant and pop.

Whether you’ve been to every Supersonic that ever was or this year you’ll be dipping your toes into our welcoming waters for the first time, we are sure you’ll love our unmissable line-up which already includes the anticipated opening concert with Will Gregory Moog Ensemble, post punk provocateurs The Pop Group, Liima, a new collaborative quartet formed of Danish indie-pop trio Efterklang and Finland’s finest improvisational percussionist Tatu Rönkkö, post-everything black metal lone wolves Liturgy and label mates, psych rock explorers Eternal Tapestry. Six Organs Of Admittance (Ben Chasny) will be performing, dissecting and demonstrating The Hexadic System whilst other welcome additions include the uncompromising and unmissable Gazelle Twin, and Delight Is Right, an afternoon curated by Richard Dawson (which includes performances by Afework Nigussie, Jiří Wehle, Rhodri Davies and Phil Tyler).

Flamingods shall be bringing a welcome and vibrant splash of day-glo to the main festival programme alongside Swedish maxi-experimentalist duo Wildbirds & Peacedrums, the Franco-Scottish hedonism of Glasgow’s Happy Meals, super-kinetic London future jazz outfit Tomaga and the anonymous sundrenched sounds of Slow Magic. We can also highly recommend grit’n’synth solo punk Apostille, the brightly coloured prickly post-pfunk of Ravioli Me Away, maxi-percussionist Danes Selvhenter and mysterious organ and saxophone possessing super-duper-group Sex Swing. From Northern Ireland, manic, droning interpreters of local mythology and instrumentation Woven Skull and the striking Circuit Des Yeux.

As it stands, the Supersonic Festival 2015 lineup is this:

Apostille / Afework Nigussie / Circuit Des Yeux / Eternal Tapestry / Flamingods / Gazelle Twin / Happy Meals /  Holly Herndon/ Jiří Wehle / Liima – Efterklang + Tatu Rönkkö / Liturgy / Phil Tyler / Ravioli Me Away / Rhodri Davies / Richard Dawson /  Selventer / Sex Swing / Six Organs of Admittance/ Slow Magic / The Pop Group / Tomaga / Wildbirds and Peacedrums / Woven Skull

More of the line up, musical and extra curricular still to be announced in the coming weeks, so stay tuned. Meanwhile, after reaching the target set by the earlybird kickstarter campaign, we are pleased to announce that general tickets are now on sale.  For weekend tickets: www.supersonicfestival.com/tickets