A much-loved musical spectacle in his native Newcastle for many years now, Richard Dawson is a skewed troubadour who sings and plays guitar with a rare intensity and a very singular style.  Dawson’s music is a collision of opposites, his hoarsely cracking voice suddenly rising to a magical soar that’s been compared to Tim Buckley, John Martyn and Richard Youngs, while his battered acoustic guitar veers from stumble to sublime in a way that can recall Sir Richard Bishop or Captain Beefheart. Add this to his snaring way with words and Dawson’s got you pinned

http://www.richarddawson.net

Supersonic needs YOU! This year, Capsule’s internationally renowned festival runs 19-21 October 2012 and there are two internship opportunities for dynamic individuals interested in learning more about the delivery of a large scale arts festival. You will receive valuable work experience and be credited as part of the Supersonic Festival core team.

Capsule are looking for a Marketing Intern to assist with the promotion of the festival and a Production Intern to assist with logistics before, during and after the event.

MARKETING INTERNSHIP

The Marketing Intern will work closely with Capsule’s Directors, assisting with the promotion of the festival. Tasks include:

–       Assisting with the Supersonic marketing strategy with focus on increasing national and regional audiences

–       Setting up and maintaining a festival distribution database

–       Assisting with mailing list management

–       Distributing promotional material as a core member of the festival street team

–       Preparing suitable content for the web

–       Online image collation

–       Maintaining social media subscriptions including Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Last fm

–       Identifying relevant press opportunities and hosting press attendees and media sponsors

–       Assisting with artist/ press liaison during the festival (meet & greet/ hosting/ interviewing)

–       Assisting with the coordination and supervision of the festival box office (reporting on ticket sales, compiling guest and press lists)

–       Assisting with the delivery of a post-festival press report

–       Organising audience feedback

PRODUCTION INTERNSHIP

The Production Intern will work closely with Capsule’s Directors and Operations Manager assisting them with the production before, during and after the festival to include:

–       Production and co-ordination of commissions and partner events

–       Understanding the operations of the festival. Layouts, stalls, staff, suppliers, equipment

–       Preparation and set-up of festival production office

–       Co-ordination of festival volunteers

–       Site layout, risk assessment, health and safety and production manual

–       Aspects of Artists Liaison (catering, accommodation, travel)

–       Liaise with site stalls, catering and film crew access

–       Site set up and maintenance (Install, de-rig, signage, cleanliness)

–       Organising after festival party

–       Evaluation management

–       Delivery of an evaluation report post festival

–       Undertake other tasks as necessary and directed by Festival staff.

Please note, unfortunately we can only receive applications from people over 18 years of age. For more info please contact admin@capsule.org.uk with ‘Marketing Internship’ or ‘Production Internship’ as the subject title. You will then receive more information on the  role and details for application.

The deadline for applications is Monday 16th July and interviews will be held on Tuesday 24^th July. The successful candidates will begin the internship in August.

Here’s a selection of tracks by artists performing at Supersonic 2012 – to help you navigate your way through our programme. Feel free to embed it on your own sites and help us spread the word. Enjoy!
If you haven’t bought your tickets yet – CLICK HERE

http://www.myspace.com/ruinsband

SWLLWS is the dream-based solo project of Midlands artist Sian Macfarlane. Channelling electronic transmissions from the owl house, swathes of synths, found sounds and whispers interact with delicate melodies and choirs of ghostly vocals.
SWLLWS arrives at the Supersonic festival after a trail of limited edition tapes and cd-rs and well received slots at the Rammel Weekender, Nottingham, Radio Black Forest’s Fell Foot Festival, and support slots for the likes of US Girls, Josephine Foster, Peaking Lights and Grouper, where she performed a specially commissioned piece ‘SÉANCE”. The Supersonic performance will continue to explore these themes.

http://swllws.bandcamp.com

Warm Digits is the krautophonic blizzard-wave duo of Andrew Hodson and Steve Jefferis, based either side of the Pennines in Newcastle-upon-Tyne and Manchester. Warm Digits make a semi-improvised brew of metronomic rhythms, snowstorm guitar and radiophonic electronics, dual-laptop electro, swathes of no-wave guitar and frantic free jazz drumming, taking their cue from the hypnotic repetition of Neu!, the textural overload of My Bloody Valentine, the glacial otherworldliness of Emeralds, and the sensuous modernity of cosmic disco; there are hints in the mix too of Eno, Giorgio Moroder and Holy Fuck.

http://warmdigits.co.uk

Dragging themselves towards their tenth anniversary like a sloth in a heavy metal parking lot, Mothertrucker are no strangers to the almighty riff. They’ve crafted  a sound built on thick dirty distortion, menacing atmospherics, head bopping tempo changes and rewarding climaxes. Not content to sit alongside the navel gazing, post-metal, Neurosis wannabes so prevalent this century, Mothertrucker have evolved their sound into something far more unpredictable without losing sight of what brought them together in the first place – the power of the riff. Once you have found yourself trapped in the headlights of the Mothertrucker, you can but only lay back, stretch your sack & make peace with your maker.

http://www.myspace.com/mothertrucker

Thomas Ankersmit is a musician and installation artist based in Berlin and Amsterdam. His main instruments are the Serge analogue modular synthesizer, computer and alto saxophone. He frequently works together with New York minimalist Phill Niblock and electroacoustic artists Valerio Tricoli and Kevin Drumm.

http://www.thomasankersmit.net

“The sense of menace is generated with huge energy by the belligerently brilliant Norwegian guitarist Westerhus who coaxes a plethora of tortured sounds from his axe, bowed notes elongating into harmonic dismemberment of epic proportions. (…) This is heady, sometimes heavy, otherworldly stuff, fuelled by jazz but never hindered by it. Welcome to the new century of improvised music.” JazzWise Magazine

http://stianwesterhus.com/

This performance is produced in partnership with Jazzlines http://www.jazzlines.co.uk/

Ufomammut is a power trio formed in 1999 in Italy by Poia, Urlo and Vita, worldwide recognized as the creator of a unique brand of psychedelic sludge. With long songs, droning vocals and massive effects the band combines a monumental riffing attitude with the psychedelia of the more visionary Pink Floyd. Ufomammut’s live show is supported by the internationally acclaimed graphic and video art of Malleus.

http://www.ufomammut.com/

“If someone commissioned you to write a history of noise music in the last 20 years and not mention Kevin Drumm, you’d have to reject the offer. Since the mid-90’s, Drumm has recorded for almost every experimental label you can think of, from Erstwhile to Mego to Hanson, and played with almost every experimental musician you could namedrop, from Jim O’Rourke to Lasse Marhaug to Aaron Dilloway. Most importantly, he’s made every sound imaginable. Primarily with guitar, but also synthesizers and laptops, Drumm has created his own musical universe in which no sonic stone needs to go unturned.” The WIre

 http://recreationalpanick.blogspot.co.uk/

It would be near impossible to celebrate 10 years of Supersonic without PCM. This duo have been at the heart of the Birmingham electronic/dance music scene for many years but have managed to keep their music and ethos resolutely underground.

PCM draw from their wide-ranging influences from metal to Krautrock, 60s psychedelia and hardcore to create a unique take on Drum & Bass/electronica. By combining nitrous-fuelled beats and filthy subsonic basslines with alien soundscapes and horror movie unease, PCM continue Birmingham’s heritage of producing dark, heavy music but with their eyes firmly on the dancefloor.

http://www.myspace.com/p_c_m

My Disco is a musical collaboration between Liam Andrews (bass, vocals), Rohan Rebeiro (drums) and Ben Andrews (guitar) that formed in Melbourne, Australia in 2003.  Named after the Big Black song, they create almost euphoric, trance inducing guitar music.

http://www.mydisco.com.au/

Masami Akita performs as Merzbow. Since 1979 he has been a hugely influential practitioner on the fields of sound art, noise and extreme music. Abrasive and restrained in equal measure, Merzbow is  considered to be the most important artist in noise music.

http://www.merzbow.net/

Tokyo based KK Null (Kazuyuki Kishino) is a multi instrumentalist and experimenter. As well as being part of a number of influential progressive rock bands, KK Null has played an important role in the relationship between rock and extreme music/noise.

http://kknull.com/en/

A unique energy, Jarboe’s music draws from a variety of charged sources. Her 14-year involvement with Swans cemented her place as an icon in avante garde music and she has worked prolifically as a solo artist and collaborator since. Her delivery has been described as voice acting and also channeling. A primary objective for Jarboe is to close in on the gap in the audience/performer relationship via complete submission and vicarious experience through her performance.

Jarboe will be bringing her “Intimate Indemnity” tour to Supersonic Festival 2012. This tour will feature Jarboe and classically trained pianist Renee Valentine Nelson performing songs of Swans and World Of Skin and solo Jarboe songs from her newest records entitled Indemnity 1 and 2 and will focus on singing, melody, intimacy.

http://www.thelivingjarboe.com

“We don’t know who they are, or how many of them there are, because articles about them are generally accompanied by celebrity photo montages, or by a shot of them with a T-shirt pulled over their heads. Enigmatic and elusive, they may have named themselves after the US video director because they enjoy his work, or it may be a wry comment on something or other. We have seen them spoken of as an “18-year ‘relay project'” in which members pass on the baton one to another once their endeavours are complete. We really haven’t a clue.

Hype Williams take elements from the past and turn them into something new. You’ve heard that said of many artists before, right? This time it’s true. We like to let our imaginations run riot and think of them as a latterday Throbbing Gristle, a bunch of art terrorists doing abusive, subversive things to mainstream pop culture from the margins.” The Guardian

http://www.myspace.com/hypheewilliams

“Hookworms fling themselves headlong into classic 80’s/90’s psych-rock like they’re trying to break something. Hailing from Leeds and cramming themselves giddily within the well established formal properties of the genre, they walk the scorched road behind Loop, Spectrum, and any other titan of two-chord songs who’s ever slowly wah-ed a chord until they saw colors.” – Cameron Stallones (SunAraw/Sun Ark)

http://hookworms.bandcamp.com/

“Hey Colossus are the closest thing the UK has to inheritors of the crown of the Butthole Surfers…. like the whole Texas Chainsaw Massacre family drunkenly shouting along to Neu! and Loop during Ragnarök” Stool Pigeon

http://noisestar.co.uk/colossus/

Apathy is everything to these five losers who’ll just about manage to turn up and play without being sick.
Lo-fi grit and metal maledom are fractured and recombined into monotone slabs which reference distaste for modern life as much as they poke fun at the traditions of the punk/hardcore idiom. Still barely functioning after four years of staring at the walls and occasional live performance, the band will finally have their debut album and a split 7″ record with Kilslug in tow with them for the latter part of 2012. All proceeds will be spent on plastic surgery.

http://drunkinhell.bandcamp.com/

You know who these men are. They have been other men. Who they were before does not matter. What matters most is who they are now. These men, with two menacing guitars, violent drums, and wild words will fill that void in you. They will build bunkers out of your bones. They will make weapons out of your teeth. They will drink your tears and feed on your meat. Born from the ashes of Arab on Radar, Doomsday Student come from that untouchable tradition of noise rock from Providence, Rhode Island.

http://www.doomsdaystudent.com

Clifford Torus is Anders Hana (Moha!, Ultralyd & Noxagt) on drums and electronics with Leon Barnett (Horacio Pollard, Neigh%Music) on guitar & vocals.
Heavy, hypnotic, drenched in feedback and driven by a super charged rhythm, Clifford Torus deliver a mesmerising multi-layered rhombus harsh noise, rattle your brains to pieces drums and shamelessly long effects boards to spawn boundless intertwining grooves of pure honey-gore.

For this performance, Clifford Torus will be bringing the mighty Kjetil D Brandsdal of Noxagt for bass duties.

http://cliffordtorus.blogspot.co.uk/

We’re thrilled to announce a whole host of exciting artists to the 10^th anniversary festival. Supersonic favourite Merzbow will perform a solo set as well as the ever changing Jarboe, Italian psych metal group Ufomammut and one of the most exciting live acts around at the moment – the inimitable Hype Williams.

Also added to the line up is Doomsday Student (born from the ashes of Arab on Radar), Norway’s Stian Westerhus, noise legend Kevin Drumm and Birmingham’s finest PCM. Add to that the frantic Clifford Torus, the ethereal sounds of SWLLWS and the crushing Mothertrucker along with electroacoustic artist Thomas Ankersmit, psych band Hookworms and noise rockers Hey Colossus!

We’re also excited to invite back the filth of Drunk in Hell, and special appearance from KK Null and Ruins Alone. To keep you dancing all weekend we’ve got Australia’s My Disco and the kraut/electronica duo Warm Digits and for those calmer moments, the gorgeous, stripped back songs of Richard Dawson.

Believe it or not, there are still some more very special additions to add to their already mega tenth birthday line up which we shall unveil soon, as well as more information about the art exhibits and film programme which is still taking shape behind the scenes. But for now, please enjoy this Supersonic Festival mixtape, featuring a selection of the line up so far, for your listening pleasure. Please feel free to host this on your site and help us to spread the word.

As a reminder, here is a list of the line up as it stands; Body/Head/Bohren Und Der Club Of Gore/Carlton Melton/Clifford Torus/Dope Body/Drunk In Hell/ Dylan Carlson/Flower-Corsano/Goat/Hey Colossus/Hookworms/Hype Williams/Jarboe/JK Flesh/Kevin Drumm/KK Null/Lichens/Merzbow/My Disco/PCM/Rangda/Richard Dawson/Ruins Alone/Sir Richard Bishop/Six Organs Of Admittance/Small But Hard showcase/Stian Westerhus/SWLLWS/Thomas Ankersmit/Tim Hecker/Ufomammut/Warm Digits / Mothertrucker / Zeni Geva.

Go HERE for ticket info
Go HERE for line up info