Birmingham Improvisers Orchestra directed by Mike Hurley
BIO aims to create a focus for creative music making in Birmingham and the wider Midlands area. It will be made up of musicians who are concerned with improvisation regardless of their particular chosen area of musical activity. Although at the heart of its activities will always be improvisation it will also seek to encourage composition initially at least in the form of BIO-Activities provided by members of the group and a pool of pre-existing classics. It will also seek to generate creative partnerships with like minded people from across a broad range of disciplines whether they be musical or from art forms.
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.
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.
Supersonic 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.
The artists are:
Chris Bourke
An artist and printmaker from Worcester, he spent over a quarter of his life owning and running a skateboard shop. He now makes art full time. His work is influenced by music, politics, nature, skateboarding, tattoos, life and death.
Craig Earp Earp likes drawing strange bony twisted shapes with teeth, an obsession of his since watching John Carpenter’s The Thing and Alien when he was a schoolboy. His digital art mostly combines photo montage and illustrations together into what he calls ‘Organic Disturbances’; scenes of nature in its decay, its death, brought together to form an outlandish beauty.
Harriet ‘Alana’ Shephard As a teenager, Harriet frequently trekked into Birmingham to see various Capsule shows; droning guitars, sirening feedback and enough bass to make your jeans shake, always left her feeling spellbound; a euphoria that has continually fed into her work. Since moving to the Big Smoke, embarking on the epic quest of doing an illustration degree at Camberwell, Harriet began skateboarding; now an important aspect of her practice as an illustrator. In between drawing Heavy Metal legends and comics about mis-adventures with famous skateboarders. Harriet also runs Brash, a skate zine, which features the combination of artwork, interviews, reviews and comic strips, now in its third issue.
Jake Blanchard A freelance illustrator born and raised in the Peak District, the countryside is a huge influence on Blanchard’s work today. He has worked on a variety of different projects including record sleeves, gig posters, skateboards, t-shirts and newspapers and has exhibited throughout the UK as well as in Paris, Copenhagen, Boston and Waiheke Island (New Zealand). He also runs his own record label and publishing company, Tor Press.
Sophia Alda Since graduating from Brighton University in 2009, Sophia Alda has undertaken a variety of jobs, large and small, and exhibited widely, most recently in Leeds, Edinburgh and London. She works primarily in gouache, with a vibrant, acerbic style, and produces apparel, books and prints. She also works as a restorative decorator, where her most exciting project to date involved gilding a lion’s face.
Thomas J Hughes Horror films of the 1970s, Marvel comic books, traditional doom metal, twentieth century science fiction television serials and Yes album covers are just a few of the things that inspire Thomas in the making of his work. His work is created using a variety of materials, with an emphasis on hand-drawn illustration and typography.
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.
Lucky Dragons and The Berg Sans Nipple to play Kids Gigs at Supersonic 2011
It’s hard to imagine to two more perfect bands to play our Supersonic Kids Gigs than Lucky Dragons and The Berg Sans Nipple. These will rule! If everyone isn’t running around clapping and smiling in five minutes, we’ll need to think about refunds.
Lucky Dragons are all about people coming together to make sound, to make an event, to make something new and joyous. It’s not by accident that they refer to their live shows as ‘actions’. They encourage participation and this Supersonic live show promises to be all about (re)discovery and (re)turning to play to learn about ourselves and make new connections. There’s a live video link below and more Lucky Dragons live films are here.
The Berg Sans Nipple are a Frenchman and a Nebraskan. With two drums, synths, samples, a ton of percussion and vocals, their sounds hop-skip past each other, caught in devastatingly beautiful melodies held tight by a mind bending rhythm section. Their new video ‘Changing the Shape’ (link below) is a fantastic twist on the age-old game of exquisite corpse where an image or story is built up person-by-person using instinct and imagination. Let’s play!
We’re pleased to present two live Q&As with acclaimed artists at Supersonic this year. Following in the footsteps of Michael Rother (Neu!) and the Fear of Music panel at Supersonic 2010, Tony Conrad and William Bennett will be taking part in two separate Q&A sessions.
William Bennett will be discussing the influence of West African sounds on his own work, his new Afronoise project as Cut Hands and his music’s inclusion on the Vice film ‘The Vice Guide To Liberia’. Meanwhile, Tony Conrad will be in conversation at this year’s festival with the help of the ever inquisitive The Quietus, discussing his cross artform approach, moving between the world of visual art, film and sound.
‘The Furies’ – a dirty girl band
at mac, Saturday 22nd October, 9pm
Birmingham’s own Kindle Theatre plunder the city’s native sound of Heavy Metal to create a ballsy gig for you to come and get sweaty to. ‘The Furies’ smashes together rock, metal and soul songs with text and poetry to drasticall retell the story of Clytaemnestra – a woman betrayed. Told through the eyes of Clytaemnestra’s band ofFuries; hot, sensual, with a glint in their eye, this is the ultimate tale ofrage, revenge and envy.
“Joan Jett, Ramones, Bowie, Rocky Horror, Angela Carter… Fantastic, they had the audience in their palms”
Audience feedback, BE Festival 2011, winner of the European Touring Prize
Age recommendation 15+
Tickets £12/£9, available through mac box office: 0121 446 3232 + online HERE
After Supersonic closes down on Saturday night, you’ll be too excited to go to bed of course. So why not spend the night in Eastside Projects (bring your own sleeping bag)? Christian Jendreiko and Andrew Moscardo-Parker will be performing a 24-hour guitar & stringed instrument performance from 9pm on Saturday to 9pm on Sunday.
Scored and performed by the Dusseldorf based Jendreiko (also of Apparent Extent label fame) and Birmingham based Moscardo-Parker of Einstellung and Lash Frenzy, the two artists will work with various performers from Birmingham, the UK and Europe to produce an ever-evolving, deep listening experience. Following on from Jendreiko’s 7-hour performance of GOTTESRAUSCHEN (GOD’S WHITE NOISE) : Action for Players, Guitars and Amplifiers in 2010 that coincided with Supersonic 2010, this will be an immersive and exploratory event allowing listeners to lose all sense of themselves.
9pm – 9pm : Saturday 22nd – Sunday 23rd October
Eastside Projects | 86 Heath Mill Lane | B9 4AR
Supersonic photographer James Robinson has captured some amazing images at the festival in the past couple of years. (That’s Kristoph Hahn of Swans above, a man who practically defines the dictionary entry for ‘craggy’.) Robinson has been able to not only shoot live performances , but also develop an on going set of portraits of the artists off stage.
In a time when (for some folk) it can be difficult to think of musicians as people, when popular culture elevates artists to such inaccessible places, Robinson’s photographs get to the core of these musicians as real individuals. His photographs maintain integrity and lose the myth-making nonsense. The exhibition ‘Incarnate‘ at Supersonic 2011 reveals more of Robinson’s work.
To see more of Jamies Supersonic photos check our Flickr group
With exactly 2 weeks until SUPERSONIC FESTIVAL 2011, here is the final of our 3 preview podcasts, lovingly put together by Chris Brumcast to give you a taster of what will be on offer. Enjoy and make sure you help us by spreading the word far & wide and encouraging all ya mates to have a listen.
There are still a ltd number of both weekend & individual day tickets available and they can be purchased from HERE. If you would like further info on any of the artists performing at this years festival or to see what films, exhibitions and workshops we have available see HERE
A number of websites have been asking Capsule for our take on the festival – why we do it, highlights from previous years, things to watch for this year. Check out our take on things below via Rockfeedback and Wiki Festivals.
With just over two weeks until Supersonic 2011, we thought it was worth getting into training with a bit of a warm up.
Prepare yourselves and get lunging. With thanks to Scott Johnston for sending us this beauty
If you’d really like to get into training for Supersonic we have the wonderful Blood Ceremony + Sally performing at the Hare & Hounds this Sunday – more details can be found HERE
Supersonic 2011 marketplace – welcome to our stallholders
Make sure you bring an extra bag or two to Supersonic – you’ll be wanting to stock up on import Neurosis vinyl and that ultra-rare, lathe-cut 8″ comp of Bardo Pond side projects. The one with the hand-stamped foil sleeve? Yeah, that’s the one. These fine people have got all this and more.
LANCASHIRE & SOMERSET
Lancashire and Somerset is humble label, currently living in the hills of Shropshire. They attempt to help and support a growing family of bands like Nathan Bell, Kogumaza (both performing at Supersonic 2011), Enablers, McWatt and previous festival hits Mugstar, all with a like minded ethos based around truthful, honest music. Releasing mainly on the superior format of vinyl, they hope to continue to help this network grow.
FIRST FOLD First Fold is an independent record label specializing in Electronic and Experimental music. First Fold’s focus is to maintain a self regulating and enthusiastic approach to the creation of music and visual media.
BAD EGG RECORDS Bad Egg is an independent, stalwartly DiY label which has been releasing and promoting some of Birmingham’s finest and noises since 2009. Their roster houses local heroes such as Stinky Wizzleteat, Human Hands and Fuck Your Haircut.
BURNING WORLD RECORDS Burning World Records label and mailorder is based in Holland, home of the Roadburn Festival, and mainly focused on vinyl. Black metal, drone, death, stoner, doom – as long as it kicks you in the gut. As a label Burning World is the home of Roadburn Records. They’ve released records by Altar Of Plagues, Yob, Church Of Misery, Lustmord and Neurosis in the past, to name but a few. Coming up are the new Gnaw Their Tongues vinyl and White Hills Live at Roadburn on CD and vinyl.
FUTURE NOISE Future Noise is a Manchester based-label, booking agency and PR company. They work and have worked for the likes of Ufomammut, Charger, Unearthly Trance, Grifter, Morkobot, The Sontaran Experiment, Stuntcock, Lento, Paul Catten, Conan, Domes of Silence, Rise to Thunder, A Man Called Catten, Bastard of the Skies, Black Sun, Undersmile, Siena Root, OvO, Pine Barrens, Privileged to Fail Records, Full Stack Recording Studio, The Sleeping Shaman, Supernatural Cat Recordings and The Malleus Rock Artlab.
HOLY ROAR
Holy Roar Records is an independent record label run by Alex Fitzpatrick and Ellen Godwin. The label began in January 2006 when they moved to London from Birmingham and put out their first release in June 2006. Since then Holy Roar Records has released over 80 CDs, records and tapes. The name is actually derived from a vision Alex had whilst on the hallucinogen LSD. The vision came to Alex, as he listened to Slayer, in the form of a lion with the face of Jesus.
STATIC CARAVAN
Digging out musical treasures at the A + R car boot sale of recorded sound, Static Caravan have been putting out esoteric electronica and folk-pop since the late 1990s. They have worked with Tuung, Hannah Peel, Starless & Bible Black, The Owl Service and Serafina Steer amongst many others.
SOUTHERN
Southern Records has been fiercely fighting the independent corner since the late 1970’s, when the helped anarchist punks and activists CRASS found their own label. Over the years Southern have worked with, amongst many many others, Dischord, Bluurg, Wrong, Subterranean, On-U Sound, Touch & Go, Kranky, Constellation, Ipecac, Anticon, Saddle Creek and Southern Lord. Southern is proud to support Capsule and Supersonic for another year of outstanding boundary-pushing programming. Come and say hello – they’ll have plenty of interesting stuff for sale and love a natter.
COLD SPRING Cold Spring are the UK’s premier Label, Mailorder and Distributor for Industrial & related music: Esoteric, Dark Ambient, Power Electronics, Noise, Ritual, Japanoise, Soundtrack, Neofolk, Doom and experimental music.
The films below aren’t from this year’s stallholders, but they are a celebration of the beautiful world of physical records and record shops!
If you think the Capsule ladies sit around twiddling their thumbs between Supersonics, think again! 2011 has been an incredible year for our most ambitious project to date with exhibitions, live events and a conference all celebrating Birmingham and the Black Country as the birthplace of Heavy Metal. The project is ongoing and you can contribute to the Home of Metal digital archive and learn more here www.homeofmetal.com
Impassioned by the social conditions of the time and inspired by anarcho-punk bands who were taking an anti-capitalist stance through their music, Nicholas Bullen and Miles ‘Rat’ Ratledge formed Napalm Death. At only 14 years old, they were motivated to play gigs, create fanzines, and swap music via cassette tapes with the wider punk community. This exhibition will give you an exciting insight into this period of music history – the formation of Grindcore.
No strangers to Supersonic, here are Napalm Death performing at the fest in 2010:
Photographing Supersonic for the past 2 years, James Robinson has been able to not only shoot live performances , but also develop an on going set of portraits of the artists off stage.
It can be difficult to think of musicians as people, popular culture elevates artists to such inaccessible places, it is often easy to forget that they are real. Photographers rarely get the opportunity to interact with musicians, restricted to press pits and passes, blocked by security and reduced to paparazzi.
The beauty of the ‘alternative’ music scene is that it’s about creating, doing and making music that is to be thought about, enjoyed, sometimes maybe even not enjoyed. These are the people who are making without a shadow of a doubt, the most interesting, challenging music anywhere in the world. These artists maintain integrity. These people are real.
Flaunt your collective musical nous in this unique contest to determine the Trivia Champs at Supersonic 2011. It’s free to enter and you can field a team of anything between 2 and 6 people. The quiz starts at 2.30pm so please have your teams registered and ready to fire for 2.15pm.
Think you know your Electric Funeral from your Electric Wizard? Well, Bring it on!
Our friends over at the ever-excellent ATTN magazine have just published an interesting interview with Carsten Nicolai aka Alva Noto ahead of his appearance at Supersonic 2011. Take a look here.
Supersonic happens at the Custard Factory complex in an area of Birmingham known as Digbeth. Built around the nearby River Rea (for easy access to transportation), the first settlement of what is now Birmingham was in fact established here in the 7th century. Come the Industrial Revolution and Digbeth becomes one of the first centres of industry in Birmingham, beginning a long and important history of successful trading and manufacturing. Nowadays, light industry and creative businesses sit alongside each other in the area.
It’s these interconnected histories and threads that the Sonic Graffiti project explores. All around the area, set into a decaying walls, there are a headphone sockets. Unplug yourself from your own world and plug into sounds from this place and beyond, dark and decayed sounds, pulling you beneath the surface and into the fabric of buildings, past lives and multi-layered histories. The project features sound works by Mr.Underwood – these are contained within the installations with each piece based on a field recording taken close to the site in which you find it. The pieces will require you to interact with them in a variety of ways to trigger or manipulate the sound.
Sonic Graffiti is a co-commission between Capsule and VIVID and is part of an experimental season entitled Crash, stimulated by the vision of J.G. Ballard. Ballard’s writing, particularly on urban utopia/dystopia, frequently covers ground from ecological fears to the sexualisation of technology and from urban ruin to suburban alienation. His universe pervades music, film, fashion, visual arts, architecture and recent philosophical constructs such as psychogeography.
The artist Sam Underwood will tour his Sonic Graffiti project during the festival. Meet him on Friday 21st October at 8pm or Sunday 23rd October at 8pm outside VIVID – and bring headphones.
“There has always been and will always be Samekhmem.
Seek not to understand the birth of Samekhmem.
True comprehension of this is beyond regular thought.
Place your mind, instead, in the center of the universe and allow yourself to dwell in the infinite.
When you know Samekhmem, you will realise that you have always known Samekhmem.
This truth extends beyond all imaginable constraints.
You will know the eternal message of Samekhmem.
It has always been heard by you and you will always be part of it.”
Samekhmem are performers of the Sacred Eternal Drone – that has always been and will always continue. Join the followers of Samekhmem, as a follower you can experience, contribute to and dictate past and future performances.
Experience a Samekhmem performance, witness the perpetual Sacred Eternal Drone, as part of ‘The Event’ on Friday 21st October at Minerva Works, 5pm-10pm.
Walking the streets near to VIVID and Supersonic Festival, the ubiquitous signs of neglect passing you by. Set into a decaying wall there is a headphone socket. You unplug from your own music and plug yourself into the city. The sounds you hear are of and from this place, dark and decayed.
Artist Sam Underwood will tour his Sonic Graffiti during the festival, meet him on Friday 21st October at 8pm, or Sunday 23rd October at 8pm outside VIVID – bring headphones.
Sonic Graffiti is a co commission between Capsule and VIVID and is part of an experimental season entitled Crash, stimulated by the vision of J.G. Ballard.
A very special opportunity to hear a legend in the sonic and visual art world speak about this work. Tony Conrad will be in conversation at this year’s festival with the help of the ever inquisitive The Quietus.
Tony will be discussing his long line of collaborative work, plus giving us an insight into early days having worked with Velvet Underground and other such luminaries. Tony will also be discussing his cross artform approach, moving between the world of visual art, film and sound.
Extracts from Tony Conrad’s influential structural film ‘The Flicker’:
