Since 1991 Vicki Bennett has been making CDs, radio, and A/V multimedia under the name People Like Us. By animating and recontextualising found footage collages Vicki gives an equally witty and dark view of popular culture with a surrealistic edge.

www.peoplelikeus.org

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Flautist Kelly Jones performance veers seamlessly from Anthony Braxton styled free playing to a haunted elongated droning style akin to Isnaj Dui. Pascal Nichols, the percussive element of the duo, splatters sporadically in a fractured rainfall, faintly disrupting proceedings to begin with, then forcefully propelling the musical structure into steadier rhythms. This primitive structure is forced in amplified rackets via free jazz techniques and improvisation.
www.myspace.com/partwildhorsesmaneonbothsides

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OvO is a name shared by the Italian noise group led by singer Stefania Pedretti and multi-instrumentalist Bruno Dorella. OvO is one of the most interesting bands playing in this day and age. The combination of heavy riffage, bombastic drumming and vocals that could either crush concrete or lull a baby to sleep makes for an interesting blend of sound.
www.myspace.com/ovobarlamuerte

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“They’re just as brutal and ferocious as ever. As the songs keep improving in structure so does the intent ferociousness, infectiousness, edginess and socio-political irascibility” Terrorizer Magazine

Formed in Birmingham in 1981, Napalm Death created Grindcore and the ‘blast beat’, pushing the envelope of metal to new extremes. 2010 will be their first Supersonic Festival appearance.
www.myspace.com/napalmdeath

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Aaron Spectre started off playing drums and going to all ages shows in the wasteland of suburban Massachusetts. In 2003 he dropped out of college and relocated to Berlin, Germany, to launch his music career. He released several vinyl 12”s, and soon found a following playing at squats and raves around Europe. Spectre founded Drumcorps to synthesize the unlikely mix of electronic music production values and the raw power of American hardcore. Drumcorps shows are notoriously high-energy, cathartic affairs.
www.myspace.com/drumc0rps
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Multi instrumentalist Martin Dosh creates layered and looped electronic based sounds that would be described as ambient if it weren’t so joyous and danceable. In 2003 Anticon proudly released Dosh’s virtuoso debut, Dosh, a loop-building collage of shimmering organ, atypical drumming grounded in groove, field recordings and spontaneous performance. Dosh continues to impress with his phenomenal live performances involving extensive percussion including the mandatory pots and pans

www.myspace.com/doshanticon
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[jwplayer config=”video mainpage” playlistid=”847″]Demons features Nate Young, the founding member of Wolf Eyes, and have evolved from a synthesizer duo into a Visual Music trio with the incorporation of video artist Alivia Zivich.

“This duo from Detroit made the scariest damn noise album of 2007 with Evocation . Far from the typical free-for-all inanity that dominates the noise scene, Nate Young and Steve Kenney create sounds that are more in line with Carl Zittrer’s horror movie soundtracks” Blood Sausage

www.myspace.com/demonscool

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Chicago based band on Drag City. Cave core themselves round sickeningly tight drum and bass that drive like an armoured vehicle, whilst the sinewy guitar work punctuates aggressively. Think cosmic grooves and full on psych wig out.
www.myspace.com/realreelpro

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Hallogallo – Michael Rother + Friends present the music of  Neu!
The legendary German group NEU! released only 3 albums between 1972 and 1975, but these albums had an influence wildly disproportionate to their modest commercial success. Inspired by revisiting these recordings, Michael Rother has invited a group of musicians to visit the NEU! universe with him for a series of live performances: Steve Shelley (Sonic Youth), Benjamin Curtis (School of Seven Bells), and Aaron Mullan (Tall Firs) will perform a limited number of concerts this year as ‘Hallogallo 2010’. This group will perform NEU!  music and selections from Rother’s work with Harmonia and his solo albums.
www.michaelrother.de/en/

Following the news that the 2010 edition of Birmingham’s acclaimed annual Supersonic Festival will be headlined by SWANS, Capsule are hugely excited to announce the second headlining act, GODFLESH. Acclaimed by many as founders of the industrial metal movement, Godflesh will be returning to their Birmingham roots to play the band’s first UK show in over 10 years. Tickets are now on sale!

Featuring band members Justin Broadrick (ex-Napalm Death and Head of David) and Benny Green (ex-Fall of Because), Godflesh will be bringing their crushing, apocalyptic sound back home to Birmingham in only their second show since they disbanded in 2002.
“We cannot even recall specifically the first Birmingham Godflesh show. Oddly, we think it was supporting Suicide in 1988, just after the release of our first Mini LP on Swordfish, the record label of Birmingham’s best record shop. So it’s only natural that the first Godflesh UK show in its original form in over 10 years, comes home to its birthplace, and for whom better than Supersonic, the organisation responsible for keeping Birmingham on the map with underground music, be it metal or otherwise. It is with great pleasure that Godflesh returns to its roots.” – Justin Broadrick, Godflesh

This rare and exceptional performance by GODFLESH forms part of a series of line up announcements for Supersonic 2010. Also confirmed are with many more exciting acts and artists to be revealed in the coming weeks and months.

Buy tickets: www.theticketsellers.co.uk
www.seetickets.com

We have just negotiated a number of special rate rooms for Supersonic visitors at the Paragon Hotel which is a mere 5 mins walk from the venue. These rooms go very quickly so best get in quickly.

Special Supersonic Deal:

Paragon Hotel

(5 mins walk from the Custard Factory)
A magnificent example of Gothic architecture, the Paragon is situated in the heart of the city, lovingly restored into a modern, stylish, urban retreat.
£35.00 Room Only for Standard Single Room
£40.00 Room Only for Standard Twin or Double Room
£45.00 Room Only for Superior Single Room
£50.00 Room Only for Superior Double or Twin Room.
Breakfast will be available upon request at £5.00

Quote ‘CATS221010′ to book at special festival rate

T: +44 (0) 121 627 0627 / F: +44 (0) 121 627 0628
E: [email protected]

For more hotel deals check Hotels

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Out of the New York underground Swans created dark, abrasive, murky, slowed-down noise rock  – their depraved lyrics stalked and disturbed throughout the 80s and 90s. After 15 years of touring and constant productivity Swans disbanded in 1997.

Talking about his decision to reactivate the project Michael Gira says:
“there was a point a few years ago during a particular show when I was on tour with Angels  Of Light, with Akron/Family serving as the backing band. It was during the  song The Provider. Seth’s guitar was sustaining one open chord (very loudly), rising to a peak, then crashing down again in a rhythm that could have been the equivalent of a deep and soulful act of copulation. The whole band swayed with this arc. Really was like riding waves of sound.  I thought right then, “You know, Michael, Swans wasn’t so bad after all…” . Ha ha!  It brought back – in a flood – memories, or maybe not memories, more a tangible re-emersion in the sensation of Swans music rushing through my body in waves, lifting me up towards what, I can only assume, will be my only experience of heaven.”

The recent reactivation of the band – with the line up of: Michael Gira; guitar, voice, mendicant friar act  (original Swans), Norman Westberg: guitar  (original Swans),  Christoph Hahn: guitar  (mid-period Swans and most Angels of Light ), Phil Puleo; drums, percussion, dulcimer etc etc  (final Swans tour and most of Angels of Light), Chris Pravdica: bass and gadgets  (Flux Information Sciences / Services/ Gunga Din) and Thor Harris: drums, percussion, vibes, dulcimer, curios, keys,  etc… (Angels of Light, now also with Shearwater) – promises to be as formidable as the early, brutal and growling noise albums they made their mark with.

“He’s a virtuoso of the 12 string guitar, but he’s anything but showy. He lays out patterns and shapes that subtly shift over time and lead you to a deeply satisfying mental state. Recently, driving around with the car stereo blasting his music I found myself inexplicably weeping. Why??? The music’s not sad, or even mournful really. It’s just exquisite in an ineffable way, and taps into a place, a dream place, or a pre-thought place, which each of us might recognize was always there inside of us and is suddenly revealed. Like coming home after a painful journey, I suppose…”
Michael Gira/Young God Records

http://www.myspace.com/jamesblackshaw

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Blue Sabbath Black Fiji
Charles Lavenac and Janin Benecke emerge from the bedroom to the stage with their psychedelic guitar based drone and noise. They’re worldly chaps currently residing in Glasgow and gaining a reputation as one of the most intriguing new bands around.
www.myspace.com/bluesabbathblackfiji
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Bong formed in 2005 in Newcastle and have very kindly been playing slow, droning psychedelic jams for anyone who appreciates that sort of thing. They merge classic doom rock tactics with a love of psychedelia and raga hypnotism, lacing their monolithic drones with vocal incantations and live sitar. Channeling Space Rock, Doom, Eastern influences and Black Sabbath
http://www.myspace.com/landbong

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Although Eagle Twin is a very new entity, its helmsman Gentry Densley is no stranger to innovative, heavy music.  Densley was the musical visionary and leader of the legendary Jazz, Prog, Rock, Metal, Hardcore group Iceburn from 1991-2001.

In order to disseminate his majestic and mountainous riffs in the present day he enlisted massively behemoth skinsman Tyler Smith. The drums conjure a repetitious mantra that is eerily infectious.
http://www.myspace.com/eagletwin

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Fancy partying in a 1970s drag queen bar in outer space? Well, Gnod provide the perfect music accompaniment. This is psychedelic drone rock, tribal drumming, grunge and utter filth all pushed along with a Krautrock like pulse.

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Gnaw is the sawblade-wrapped-in-razorwire brainchild of Alan Dubin (Khanate, OLD), Carter Thornton (Enos Slaughter), Jun Mizumachi (Ike Yard), and Jamie Sykes (Thorr’s Hammer, Burning Witch). Combining noise and metal in a mesh of sonic experimentation, Dubin sounds out the group with his gut-wrenching vocals, he screams, whispers, chants and generally terrifies us.

“Gnaw celebrates missing out like nobody else in the whole damn Universe” Julian Cope
http://www.myspace.com/gnaw666

[jwplayer config=”video mainpage” playlistid=”880″]Jailbreak feat. Chris Corsano + Heather Leigh
Jailbreak is the duo of pedal steel/vocalist Heather Leigh and drummer Chris Corsano. The name foregrounds the kind of outlaw violence with which the two reformulate rock/roll instants by bringing free jazz fire power to amp-humping sex beats. Jailbreak play improvised music that dispenses with traditional notions of call and response or dialogue in favour of a profound simultaneity that would birth instant forms from the application of high energy strategies. Leigh’s steel mainlines sanctified slide guitar sources and deforms them with overdriven electricity, playing a form of future-blues exploded by super-charged currents. Corsano detonates time, literally blows it to pieces, in favour of a profound polyrhythmic feel that would confuse past and future. Yet the whole thing rocks like it hasn’t a braincell to spare.

http://www.cor-sano.com

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Spontaneous improvisational composition by form and function is the basis for Lichens. Injecting evolution and natural process into the art form is key. Reflection of internalized experience illuminates symbiosis, serendipity and syncronicity ultimately opening the door. Mistakeisms prevail, time only tells and future past is the next window.

Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe is Lichens. Through collaboration Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe has worked withWhite/Light, Cloudland Canyon, Michael Zerang, Joshua Micah Abrams, Alan Licht, Hisham Bharoocha, Rose Lazar, Bird Show(Ben Vida), Doug Aitken, Butchy Fuego, Lee Ranaldo, Twilight, Lucky Dragons, David Scott Stone, Rob Barber (High Places), Patrick Smith, Koen Holtkamp (Mountains), Jonas Asher (Grasslung), Ian Wadley, Rhys Chatham and Om.

http://www.lichensarealive.com/

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MELT-BANANA sweat out a super-adrenalized, maxi-caffeinated collision of frenzied drum rhythms and torturous guitar squeals through tiny, frantic, hyper rhythmic little songs. Front woman Yasuko O’s ultra-high-pitched screeches and Agata’s screaming slide guitar vie for supremacy across a rhythmic frenzy that is so ridiculous and precise, it will crush you with its brilliance. Here are the cerebral gnashing guitars, the aggravated pep squad proclamations and the neck-snapping rhythm change-ups irresistible to those seeking a new musical truth. MELT-BANANA doesn’t sound like anything you’ve ever heard. Simply put, they are unclassifiable.
http://www.myspace.com/azap

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Having equal passion for electronic and extreme music, and motivated to fill the glaring gaps in their record collections, Cookson and Rozeik began recording material under the name Necro Deathmort in 2007

The duo take their favourite aspects of doom, drone, electronica, ambient, hip-hop and dance music, and force it all together into something altogether more…Necro.  This is not ‘doom meets electronica’: this is an organic sound that owes little to current musical trends, and everything to the music that originally inspired it’s creators – this is Necrotronic…A maelstrom of dirty beats, supernatural atmospheres, agonising guitars and crushing low end.

http://www.myspace.com/necrodeathmort

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Following his acclaimed “Voice Of The Seven Woods” debut for Twisted Nerve (2007), Rick Tomlinson’s new Voice Of The Seven Thunders album has been released in March 2010 to critical wonderment. His new four-piece touring band features Keith Wood (Hush Arbors, Sunburned, Current 93), Chris Walmsley (Broadcast, Kelpe) and Tom Relleen (The Oscillation). Their Supersonic Festival appearance will closely follow the Autumn release of ‘The Blue Comet Mixes’ on limited 12″ vinyl – four cuts from the ‘Voice of the Seven Thunders’ LP re-navigated by Andrew Liles of Nurse With Wound.
http://www.myspace.com/voiceofthesevenwoods

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Supersonic Festival are delighted to announce the first UK sow in over 10 years for Godflesh.
After leaving the ranks of Head of David in 1988 (having previously done time in the early days of Napalm Death), Justin Broadrick wasted no time in setting up a new outfit that was arguably as epoch-defining as Napalm. Teaming up with bassist Benny Green (his cohort in pre-Napalm act Fall of Because), their new act, Godflesh, saw the hyper-speed facets of Napalm Death turned on its head with downtuned guitars and slower tempos the order of the day. A tangible sense of urban decay and alienation oozed from every pore, thus birthing Industrial Metal.

Their ‘Streetcleaner’ opus conjured up images of concrete tower blocks; cold, grey flyovers and nihilistic angst – arguably as potent a musical representation of Birmingham as the opening chords to ‘Black Sabbath’.

To this day Godflesh are revered as godheads by acts as disparate as Isis and Fear Factory, this long-awaited 2010 reformation surely bound to propel them back into the consciousness of many, staking their claim as true musical innovators.

www.myspace.com/godsflesh

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