For one weekend each year Digbeth’s arches vibrate with strange, wonderful sounds as the Custard Factory becomes the focal point for one of the UK’s most distinctive and respected music festivals…Supersonic Festival.

2012 marks the ten year anniversary of this dynamic, constantly challenging, experimental, multi-disciplinary arts festival, which identifies the otherwise indescribable connections between experimental music, art, performance and film. To commemorate this impressive and very special milestone this year, Capsule propose to work with Supersonic alumni and emerging artists to celebrate the achievements of the festival thus far whilst also focusing firmly on the contemporary. Because as well as giving a warm welcome to many influential, era-defining artists over the years, Supersonic always has an uncanny knack for highlighting new acts before everyone else is talking about them.

Taking place 19-21 October 2012 at Custard Factory, Birmingham. we are very pleased to announce a special appearance from Germany’s Bohren & Der Club of Gore. This will be an exclusive UK show from the doom ridden jazz outfit and we’re incredibly excited!

This year will also see performances from:

Lichens / Dylan Carlson / Zeni Geva / JK Flesh / Carlton Melton / Tim Hecker / Dope Body / Rangda / Flower-Corsano Duo / Six Organs of Admittance / Sir Richard Bishop / Goat and a Small but Hard label showcase featuring DJ Scotch Bonnet plus many many more to be announced

Early bird tickets are available from https://supersonicfestival.com/tickets

For one weekend each year Digbeth’s arches vibrate with strange, wonderful sounds as the Custard Factory becomes the focal point for one of the UK’s most distinctive and respected music festivals…Supersonic Festival.

Join us this year to celebrate our 10th birthday.
Tickets will go on sale on the 1st May and we’ll be announcing our first wave of confirmed artists as well as hotel deals and more.

New York City’s Unsane assisted in pioneering a more aggressive, less studied version of noise rock, one that blended the scum/art industrial sturm und drang of Foetus, the Swans, Einsturzende Neubauten, and Sonic Youth with the decidedly more straightforward hardcore idiom favored by acts like Sick of It All. As a power trio, Unsane relied upon a hammering, power-press rhythm section, a searing Telecaster howl, and distorted vocals that resembled nothing if not the sound of a man trapped in the New York Subway system .

March 20th 2012 sees the band’s 7th full length ‘Wreck’ out on Alternative Tentacles Records. For over two decades they have represented a harsh, aggressive, honest, and intelligent voice of New York’s Lower East Side.

http://unsanenyc.com/

Big Business started as a two piece band composed of Jared Warren of Karp and The Tight Bros From Way Back When, and Coady Willis of Murder City Devils. Their sound has been characterized as a bombastic and frantic low end attack, marked by Warren’s signature vocal delivery. The band released its first album, “Head for the Shallow”, on January 25, 2005.

In late 2006, after relocating to Los Angeles, Jared and Coady both became members of The Melvins, first appearing on “(A) Senile Animal”.

http://bigbigbusiness.com/

This show will take place on Wednesday 4th July at The Rainbow Warehouse, Digbeth, Birmingham. Support comes from Birmingham’s Stinky Wizzleteat.

Tickets are £10 advance and available from https://www.theticketsellers.co.uk/

Capsule coaxed Harvey Milk to make their first UK appearance at Supersonic Festival in 2008. We’re thrilled to have them back.

Harvey Milk are an American experimental rock/noise rock band that formed in Athens, Georgia in the early 1990s. While Harvey Milk invariably draws comparisons to the Melvins, due to their penchant for slow, heavy riffs, the band has touched upon such artists as ZZ Top, Led Zeppelin, Leonard Cohen, and Kiss as influences in their music.

http://www.myspace.com/harveymilk

https://www.theticketsellers.co.uk/

We are thrilled to announce a very special show in a  beautiful location. The gorgeous Esmerine, featuring members of Godspeed You! Black Emperor and A Silver Mt Zion will perform at St Paul’s  Church in the Jewellery Quarter area of the city. The best example of modern chamber music around, we’re really excited to be able to match their sound with the perfect venue.

Tickets are £12 and available from theticketsellers and pick em up quick – there’s a real buzz about this show!

Poster designed by Leon Alexander Geernaert, go to http://iamchair.com to see more of his work.

Can you keep a secret?

Will you give us one night of your life?

Capsule and Fierce Festival have co-commissioned a mysterious and memorable experience that will take place in Birmingham on Thursday 5 April as part of the next Fierce Festival (which runs from 29 March – 8 April 2012). The artists have insisted that their identity is kept strictly anonymous until after the event has taken place.  Capsule and Fierce Festival are combining their expertise in producing cutting edge music, contemporary art and live experiences to create this very unique event.

When you book you will be asked to leave an email address and phone number. We will arrange to meet you at a location near Birmingham City Centre, where your experience will begin.

Intrepid audience members can book alone for £15 or a discount is available for groups of 4, who can buy a ticket for £55. There are no concession tickets available.  Early booking is advised as capacity is limited. Tickets are available here http://www.theticketsellers.co.uk

Please note you will be blindfolded as part of this experience.

Monday 5th March

Teeth of the Sea + Health & Efficiency + Victories at Sea

@ Hare & Hounds, Birmingham

https://www.theticketsellers.co.uk

For more forthcoming live shows in Birmingham, take a peek at http://capsule.org.uk/

Here are Teeth of the sea performing at Supersonic Festival 2011:

Last year we brought you a pretty amazing line-up (even if we do say so ourselves) but for our 10th anniversary this year we want to do even better! We are taking a moment to look over all the good stuff from 2011 and we hope you’ll tag along and get excited about 2012 with us! Don’t forget there is still time to give us your suggestions for who you’d like to see this year, so here’s a little inspiration…

Agathe Max

Alexander Tucker

Alva Noto

Antilles

a.P.A.t.T.

Astro

Backwards

Bardo Pond

Barn Owl

Circle

Cloaks

Cut Hands

DJ Scotch Egg

Drum Eyes

Drunk in Hell

Electric Wizard

ENVY

Eternal Tapestry

Fire! with special guest Oren Ambarchi

iconAclass

Klaus Kinski

Lucky Dragons

Mike Watt + The Missingmen

Modulate

Monarch

Nathan Bell

Orthodox

Part Chimp

Pekko Kappi

Pharaoh Overlord

Scorn

Secret Chiefs 3

Selfless

Silver Apples

Slabdragger

Teeth of the Sea

The Berg Sans Nipple

The Skull Defekts

Tony Conrad

Turbonegro

White Hills

Wolves in the Throne Room

Zombi

Last year’s Supersonic Festival saw many great moments, but perhaps one of the biggest highlights was In Conversation with Tony Conrad.
John Doran (The Quietus) spoke to sonic and visual art legend, Tony Conrad, about his long line of collaborative work. Here’s your opportunity to listen again to the talk as Tony gives insight into his cross artform approach, moving between the world of visual art, film and sound. The pair also discuss Tony’s early days working with The Velvet Underground as well as other influential characters. A rare and humourous treat! Enjoy… and check back next week for another recording.

In conversation with Tony Conrad @ Supersonic Festival 2011 by Supersonic Festival

Happy new year all, 2012 will be a very special year for Supersonic Festival in that we’ll be celebrating our 10th birthday, we want to make sure it’s a really memorable occasion. Some of you may remember our blog post calling for suggestions to be made for Supersonic 2011, well now is your chance to let us know who you’d like to see perform at Supersonic 2012. You never know your dream just may come true – after all many of you asked for Corrupted in 2009 , Godflesh for 2010 and Electric Wizard last year and so they came! Think big and have your say, we look forward to hearing your suggestions. Maybe you can top our dream of Lionel Richie and Mike Patton singing a duet of ‘Easy’. We can but dream.

For those of you who missed or want to re-enjoy the A-Zine panel discussion from the theatre space at Supersonic 2011 you now can listen to it in full on here!

Featuring Alex Zamora of Fever Zine, Nic Bullen, formerly of Napalm Death and Charlie Woolley, archivist of a unique collection of fanzines and political ephemera dating from the punk movement and its aftermath assembled by artist and collector Toby Mott. The panel discussed the history of zines, their inspirations and the resurgence of zine culture.

p.s. More stuff next week…

AtoZine panel discussion @ Supersonic Festival 2011 by Supersonic Festival

The lovely people at Creative Review have published this beautiful spread of Supersonic artwork over the years. January’s ‘music’ edition of the publication also features an interview with Capsule’s Lisa Meyer about the festival’s visual approach in its piece on festival design entitled ‘Less Mud, More Art’.

Lisa says “By considering your identity , taking the time to produce good quality material you convey the love that you’ll be paying to all elements of the festival; that’s what we’ve built our reputation on’.

The artwork shows designs and illustrations by Heavy Object, Stuart Kolakovich, Karoline Rerrie and Savage Pencil

“

Check out this awesome bit of footage from Zombi’s live set from Supersonic 2011. It was filmed and edited by HTF Media whom have done a top job of capturing their stunning set matched by the sensational visuals – ENJOY!

Just released: LTD heavy weight vinyl recording of Tweak Bird at Supersonic 2010 – BUY NOW

Long standing fans of the brothers Tweak, we at Capsule were thrilled to invite TWEAK BIRD for their debut Supersonic Festival performance. Heavy rock has never felt so fun, or so sugar soaked! They joined a bill we were immensely proud of, with Swans joining us on the tour no one thought would ever happen and Godflesh performing a rare and much anticipated home coming show, along with new and exciting discoveries. So here we’ve captured one of our favorite performances of the weekend in our series of live releases, whether reminiscing or hearing it for the first time, enjoy this little piece of Supersonic history.

TWEAK BIRD is Caleb and Ashton Bird on vocals, guitar, drums, and all other intentional or unintentional instrumentation, and featuring Rene Everts on saxophone. Engineered live by Taylor Spray. Recording mixed and edited by Toshi “Gold Glove” Kasai at Nephews Closet in Los Angeles.

Photo by JWRobinson

Also a handful left of  Iron Lung live at Supersonic 09, Harvey Milk live at Supersonic 08 clear vinyl

(image taken from http://dachshundlove.blogspot.com/)

We know that people who come to SUPERSONIC are a knowledgeable and opinionated lot so we’d like to ask for your assistance to develop and improve the next festival by answering a few questions about you and your experience. This should take no more than 5 minutes of your time, and your feedback is greatly appreciated.

Your answers here will aid us in keeping costs down and in making sure new and interesting artists will keep coming to the festival – so your input really does matter in making SUPERSONIC work.

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/L6CMRGX

The questionnaire will go offline 1st Dec

Check out this video from Supersonic Festival 2011, filmed & edited by HTF Media, sound track by Teeth Of The Sea

Part of the Supersonic 2011 Collective Memory compiled by Pete Ashton.

This is the big one. The acres of words written by people with keyboards. Some are in the classic journalistic style, some are gonzo-stlye diary entries, some are capsules of reactions.

Pic by Alice at Quaint Living.

Lets’s start with the (relatively) straight reviews.

The Quietus got their review up nice and sharpish by spreading the load across various contributors.

Ross Cotton did a review but also did a great feature on being a Supersonic volunteer.

Clash Music did a review.

Gareth at Bearded did a review.

The Sleeping Shaman did a long review.

Grant Hobson at IHRTN wrote a review which amusingly opens with an apology that he didn’t catch all the acts and is being subjective. Don’t worry Grant – that’s par for the course in this game.

Gordon Reid did a review for Middle Boop Mag.

Jack Traveller did a review for OneMetal.com where he gave each band a mark out of five. The festival as a whole got 4.5/5, which is interesting as his average score for the bands was 3.2/5, meaning the non-musical bits of Supersonic must have scored an impressive 24/5. Well done the non-musical bits!

Robert Knowles reviewed Friday, Saturday and Sunday for eFestivals.

Jordan Dowling did a review for Contact Music.

James Self did a review for Artrocker.

Scott McMillan wrote a review for The Liminal.

David Bowes did a brief review for The Fly.

Jack Chuter did a review for ATTN.

Jude Clarke did a review for The Line Of Best Fit.

Martijn did a review for Mass Movement Magazine.

Jon Stickler over at Stereoboard did a review of the weekend.

Phil Styles over at Sonic Abuse gave his thoughts on this year’s festival.

Kim Monaghan from Right Where You Are Sitting Now kept a Supersonic diary over Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

Russell Cuzner at Musique Machine dissected the proceedings at this year’s festival and scored it a sweet 5/5.

Chop at Midlands Rocks wrote a 3 day review. Read his breakdown of Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

Kailas Elmer did a review for Trebuchet Magazine.

The Pictorial Review of Supersonic Festival 2011 with photos by Greg Neate is up on the Collapse Board.

Francis Morgan over at the Frieze blog gives her take on Supersonic Festival 2011.

Ann at Mental Meltdown did a special review of Wolves In The Throne Room’s festival performance.

The University of Birmingham’s Redbrick newspaper covers the festival and talks to a couple of the labels who were present at this year’s marketplace.

Steve Walsh did a review of the festival for Vibrations Magazine.

Daniel Mackenzie over at Fluid Radio gives his low down on the weekend.

Adam Cooke wrote a review over at Behind The Wall of Sleep (photos by David Smyth).

Josh Daniel reviews the acts that took to Supersonic’s stages in 2011.

Liam Cagney at Musical Criticism has a written a short review and awarded the festival experience 5 stars out of 5.

Abi Bliss has reviewed the festival weekend over at Drowned In Sound.

Over at Wiki Festivals, Cynthia Franklin has given her impressions of Supersonic as a first time attendee. We appear to have a convert, as she’s already getting excited for 2012’s festival. Just what we like to hear!

The Nov/Dec issue of MUDA Magazine (Portugal) has an incredible in-depth feature on this year’s Supersonic Festival written by Alexandra Carvalho and Daniel Ferreira (in Portuguese).

Staf magazine have translated Ross Cotton’s review of the weekend for Spanish readers (in Spanish).

Simone Robeiro from MidiAtiva (Brazil) reviews this year’s events (in Portuguese).

Sven Schlijper at KindaMusik (Netherlands) let us in on his Supersonic 2011 experience (in Dutch).

Meanwhile, slightly outside the “review” paradigm…

Alice at Quaint Living turned her review into more of a travel piece, documenting the festival acts, venue and her time in Birmingham during the days. It’s a lovely mix.

Miss Cay was inspired by Supersonic to bake n Apple and Sultana Spice Loaf.

Paul F. Ferguson wrote an epic diary of his experience as a volunteer. Triffic stuff.

Mr Underwood documented his experience as a performer and contributing artist but primarily a punter.

Kevin Hand scribbled some notes on The Rock Club forum.

Stuart of Doom Tuba duo Ore reflects on their performance.

Pete Ashton from ASH -10 captured the Supersonic Festival 2011 hashtag over the weekend and made this rather fun word cloud. What do you think?

There’s bound to be more and we’ll keep adding to this list as long as they keep cropping up in the Google. Feel free to stick a link to your words in the comments.

Part of the Supersonic 2011 Collective Memory compiled by Pete Ashton.

Couldn’t get to the front? Want to check out that shirt the guy from White Hills was wearing in more detail? Curious to know what Supersonic would look like if you could freeze time and peer into Scotch Egg’s open mouth? You’ll be wanting the photos then.

Here’s an ongoing list of what we’ve found so far…

From the pit

Circle by Katja Ogrin

First off is Katja Ogrin, effectively Capsule’s house photographer. She attempted to cover the whole festival from the first wristbands to the final snarl and pretty much succeeded. Her photos are in three Flickr sets for Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

Fox Hopper shot Selfless, and only Selfless.

Craig Earp took many photos including this shot of Backwards:

Adam Pellin Deevee has a nice pic of Drum Eyes:

James Robinson has a huge collection of photos all nicely categorised by band. I am overly impressed with his exactitude! This shot of Silver Apples jumped out at me though.

Greg Neate has put what looks to be a carefully chosen selection of shots up which shy away from the usual angles. I’m particularly taken with this one of Scorn.

Later additions:

Robert Knowles for eFestivals has galleries for various bands.

From the crowd

29xthefun

b12 Simon

jcwoody

Scott Simpson

magiceye2

jimos

peteashton

Richard Watkinson

Others

Sergio Albert took some lovely portraits: Orthodox, Zombi and Barn Owl.

Antonio Roberts recorded the Zine Festival’s stall and other zine-related things.

Searches

ssf11 on Instagram

More to come?

If you’ve posted your pics on Flickr please add them to the Supersonic Flickr Group. If they’re elsewhere (particularly Facebook which is an arse to search) and you’d like a link here please leave a comment or @ me on Twitter.

Part of the Supersonic 2011 Collective Memory compiled by Pete Ashton.

We were tracking the #ssf11 hashtag on Twitter over the weekend to see what was being said at the time. Here’s the obligatory word cloud. The larger the word the more times it appeared.

That alone doesn’t tell us a whole lot but if you’d like to do some digging yourself (as we shall be doing later) the raw data is in this spreadsheet.

Here’s the top tweeters. Passionate fans or loudmouthed attention seekers – you decide.

50 tweets: peteashton
45 tweets: eprjcts
44 tweets: distractionrecs
42 tweets: judeclarke
41 tweets: alanstephen
35 tweets: migfreeman
32 tweets: psalm
29 tweets: brumcast
28 tweets: brum
26 tweets: beeandie
25 tweets: wintermintgreen
25 tweets: thrbbngwhstl
25 tweets: chrishathway
21 tweets: the
21 tweets: misterunderwood
21 tweets: liminal
19 tweets: simon
19 tweets: callotbomb
19 tweets: b
18 tweets: blackarkdiscipl
17 tweets: burialxchamber
17 tweets: asmallfurrybear

Thanks to Dave Harte and others for help with extracting the data from Twitter’s clammy grasp.

Coming soon – photos, videos, reviews and everything in between.

It’s crunch time y’all!

Supersonic Festival 2011 takes place this weekend, 21-23 October at Custard Factory, Birmingham. Another weekend of dynamic music, film art and cake. Below is some useful info for festival attendees.

Timetable
Get your highlighters out as the festival timetable is now online, ready for you to plan your weekend.

Box Office
Located on Floodgate St, which runs off Digbeth High Street and will be open:

FRIDAY 9pm –  midnight (Box office closed)
SATURDAY 4pm – 11pm (Box office closed)
SUNDAY 2pm – 10.30 (Box office closed)
Here is a link to a map  http://g.co/maps/aqv9v

There are tickets still available from https://supersonicfestival.com/tickets
and will also be available on the door from 9pm tonight

Please make sure you come and pick up your wristband before the box office closes.

FAQ
We have an FAQ here – https://supersonicfestival.com/info/faq/

Cash points
There are only a few cash points machines in Digbeth, so you might want to take out money prior to arriving at the festival site. Particularly as our lovely Marketplace is back for another year, with Supersonic merch, band merch and stalls from a whole host of independent labels and distributors including Holy Roar, Cold Spring and altvinyl. There’ll also be a stall from the Birmingham Zine Festival as well as the Tea Room serving a delicious selection of cakes.
The Marketplace opening times are:

SATURDAY 4pm – 11pm
SUNDAY 2pm – 10.30

Food + Drink
This year we are running Supersonic bars at each stage. On sale will be Purity ales, Hogan cider and lager as well as The Kraken Rum, wines and soft drinks. There will also be tasty food available from Soul Food Project, Pika Pika Japanese food, Squisito Italian deli and more – suitable for vegans, vegetarians and meat eaters alike. (please note you are not permitted to bring your own alcohol on site)

Extra Treats
Artist Sam Underwood has recently installed his Sonic Graffiti project across Digbeth and he will be giving tour of the piece to Supersonic attendees over the weekend. Meet Sam outside VIVID http://www.vivid.org.uk/ on Friday 8pm and Sunday 8pm to plug yourself into the city.
Bring your own headphones.

As well as the music and film programme there are installations and exhibitions to keep you busy over the weekend. Grindcore: Cut n Paste, SOUNDkitchen: Cinema for the Ears () and Conny Prantera’s audiovisual installation will all be situated in Zellig, Custard Factory on Saturday and Sunday. The spaces will be open 12-8pm so you can come and check out these exciting works before the music programme begins.

Think you know your Electric Funeral from your Electric Wizard? Well put your music trivia knowledge to the test with Club Unlikely infamous QUIZ. It’s free to enter, just come on down to bar 70eights on Sunday 23rd and register your team by 2.15pm – exciting prizes!

Kids Gigs
There are still spaces available for families to join in with the Supersonic Kids Gigs, big sounds for little people. Two special performances will be taking place at the mac, introducing little ones to experimental sounds. On Saturday 22nd families can catch Lucky Dragons and on Sunday 23rd, The Berg Sans Nipple will bring their nimble fingered electronica wizardry. Tickets can be bought directly from mac.

Podcast
The third instalment of Brumcast’s Supersonic podcast is now online where you can check out Nathan Bell, Barn Owl, Drunk in Hell and many more. https://supersonicfestival.com/supersonic-podcast-no-3-2/2011/

Twitter
Our hastag this year is #ssf11

ENJOY!

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.

http://www.cobwebcollective.com/bio/

SOUNDkitchen’s cinema for the ears

SOUNDkitchen is a collective of sound artists and composers bringing new and experimental sounds to Birmingham through exciting line-ups, eclectic electronic performances and collaborations.  We’ve got some more information on what they’ll be presenting at Supersonic and have picked out some highlights here.  These performances all run 12-8pm so they’re ideal for checking out before the bands start later in the afternoons.

Saturday 22nd October

2-3pm: BEAST (Birmingham ElectroAcoustic Sound Theatre). A multi-channel work curated by Jonty Harrison.
4-4.30pm: Imaginary Landscapes – Through the Moors.  This piece tracks a journey made by Chris Tarren from his home in York out to the North-East coast, featuring multi-channel spatialisation, field recordings and experimentation that varies the sensations of reality in the material used.
5-6pm: Entre Terre et Ciel by Annie Mahtani and Julien Guillamat. Based on field recordings made around the village of Azet in the Pyrenees, this interesting piece features sounds from varying altitude levels from the bottom of a valley right up to a mountain path.

Sunday 23rd October

2-3pm: BEAST performance 2.
4-4.30pm: Iain Armstrong performs a laptop set of raw and processed sounds, focussing on aspects of noise.
4.30-5pm:  Shelly Knotts processes the sound of the steel pan, weaving intricate metallic textures in an improvisation across SOUNDkitchen’s installation.

In addition, there are installations present for the duration of the festival. SOUNDkitchen will be airing field recordings and composed pieces in their site-specific installation. They’ve asked a variety of collaborators to produce work that ties in with Capsule’s Home of Metal exhibition by producing work along the themes of home and metal.

soundkitchenuk.org

Supersonic weekend timetable
We’re pleased to finally unveil the final timetable for this weekend.  Start making your plans now!

Box Office information
The box office is located on Floodgate Street, just off Digbeth High Street.
It’s open:
Friday: 9pm-midnight
Saturday: 4-11pm
Sunday: 2.30-10.30pm
There is no entry after these times.

A wider map of Birmingham is here: http://g.co/maps/aqv9v

Spectacle at Supersonic

Supersonic has invited six artists to create illustrations in response to this year’s theme of ‘Spectacle’. The term was borrowed from the Roman practice of staging circuses, in the famous “Bread and Circuses” philosophy of the Roman elite to maintain civil order without solving underlying social and economic problems.

Like the festival itself, ‘Spectacle’ operates in two contexts simultaneously. On the one hand, it refers to high culture performances where the draw for an audience is the impressive visual accomplishment. On the other hand, it refers to low cultural shows operating in a folk environment.

Making a spectacle of themselves then are former skateboard shop owner Chris Bourke, the ‘Organic Disturbances’ of Craig Earp, Harriet ‘Alana’ Shephard‘s pen and ink illustrations, Jake Blanchard, the gouache-based vibrancy of Sophia Alda and Thomas J Hughes‘ garish horror-influenced illustrations.