In collaboration with Slag Mag, we’re proud to reveal our International Women’s Day map of Birmingham, showcasing Birmingham’s celebration of wxmen over the weekend of 7 and 8 March.

Get involved this weekend with a whole host of alternative events centred in Digbeth and Birmingham City Centre that celebrate female-created art and music…

> Saturday, March 7th: Supersonic Presents AJA, Pretty Grim and Sofa King at Centrala

> Saturday, March 7th: Slag Mag Issue 4 Fundraiser at The Night Owl, Digbeth

> Saturday March 7th: Soul Sisters club night at The Night Owl, Digbeth

> Saturday March 7th: Birmingham and Solihull Women’s Aid fundraiser at The Sunflower Lounge

> Saturday, March 7th: International Women’s Day Workshop by DanceXChange at the Birmingham Hippodrome

> Sunday, March 8th: Coming Into Creativity Workshops at Alphaworks

> Sunday, March 8th: Royal Birmingham Conservatoire’s IWD Festival at Royal Birmingham Conservatoire.

> Sunday 8th March: Comedy of Black Origin Comedy Shutdown at The Glee Club

For our own International Women’s Day event this Saturday, we’re so excited to bring back techno-noise queen AJA as our headliner – straight outta the Hell Mouth at Supersonic 2019! Kicking off the party we have gooey-pop experimentalists Sofa King followed by noise-making trio Pretty Grim accompanied by a whole array of DJ’s, female led handmade stalls and of course… SAMOSAS!!

Tickets for our International Women’s Day event are available here.

They are £8 adv or £10 otd.

International Women’s Day, originating in early 20th century through campaigns for women’s right to vote, is a celebration of the successes and achievements of women, female identifying and non binary people, as well as an open invitation to discuss discrimination and challenges still fervent in society. These events in Birmingham intend to empower, teach and create a dynamic space for those who may not have one any other time.

Capsule is looking to recruit a part time, freelance Festival Assistant to support this year’s Supersonic.

• Role: Festival Assistant (Freelance Position)
• Deadline for application: 5pm, Monday 9 March, 2020
• Interview date: Monday 16 March, 2020
• Start date: Tuesday 6 April, 2020
• Fee: up to £5400 / 60 days @ £90 per day
• Duration: April – August 2020
• Frequency of days: 3 days per week – however this will increase during the week of the festival itself
• Essential dates: the successful candidate must be available to work Supersonic Festival 17-19 July, as well as days either side of this.

This role is designed to support the organisation, working across Supersonic Festival and our year-round live events programme. This role is based at the Capsule office in Digbeth, Birmingham.

For Supersonic Festival you will support all aspects of marketing and festival logistics. During the weekend itself this role will lead the festival’s ‘Marketplace’ with market traders, a small stage and workshop areas supported by a team of volunteers and any offsite projects. This role will also be responsible for capturing live audience feedback and contributing to the various social media platforms.

You will also work on all aspects of the year-round, live programme – supporting the promotion, research, marketing, venue and artist liaison.

We are committed to diversity and inclusion, and are keen to attract people of different backgrounds, perspectives and experiences. We actively seek board members to reflect a multitude of experiences and backgrounds. We particularly encourage applications from BAME and LGBTQ+ candidates, people with a disability.

We are a small but ambitious organisation. This role would be ideal for an emerging and / or early-career, freelance arts professional, keen to expand their knowledge and enthusiasm and develop their skills in both the promotion and production of live events within a highly creative and dynamic organisation.

Application process:

To apply for this opportunity please email a completed equal opportunities form, CV, and a letter of application outlining how you feel you would fulfil this role to (maximum of 2 sides of A4) to [email protected] with ‘Festival Assistant’ in the subject line.

Job Specification

The deadline for applications is 5pm Monday 9 March, interviews will be taking place on Monday 16 March. We will notify candidates that we wish to interview by 5pm Wednesday 11 March. If you haven’t heard from us by then please assume your application has been unsuccessful on this occasion. Due to the high volume of applications we cannot provide feedback on unsuccessful applications.

Supersonic Presents:

AJA // PRETTY GRIM // SOFA KING

PLUS DJS TIL LATE

@Centrala, Digbeth Birmingham

Saturday 7 March

Doors 7.30pm

Tickets £8 adv / £10 otd

Sunday 8th March marks International Women’s Day 2020… in celebration of this we’re throwing a big bash on Saturday 7th March (often it can be all too tricky to party on a Sunday). Join us in celebrating the incredible Women artists we champion in our Supersonic line-ups all year round, the Women that work their bums off to make Supersonic happen and the Women of our audience who sure know how to have a good time! From the production office, to the stage, to the mosh pit –

Supersonic Women take up space!

With industrious beats and yellow teats – yep, you guessed it…

AJA is headlining the show!

For those at our 15th edition festival last summer who were lucky enough to catch her unforgettable set beneath the Hell Mouth – you know what the fuss is about. AJA deploys rhythmic noise, bomb heavy drum machines, convolving vocal utterance and a dedicated hell-scape of field recordings laced with abrupt sound design and blistering drone. Breaking down barriers, the unhinged nature of her legendary psycho-visceral performances challenge audiences both sonically and visually.

As a collaborator with designer LU LA LOOP, AJA’s sounds have bruised the runway of Berlin Alternative Fashion Week. She works with the LGBTQ+ community running workshops in sound art and as an advocate of promoting and increasing the presence of women in electronic music.

Joining the line-up: brummie noise-makers PRETTY GRIM…

The elusive Pretty Grim are a supergroup of sorts. Anna Palmer of Dorcha, Kaila Whyte of Youth Man, and Meesha Fones of Victor both make up this alt-rock outfit. The layers of Fone’s thrashing drums are sliced by Whyte’s idiosyncratic guitar and topped by Palmer’s wails into the mic – the perfect cakey concoction of grinding proto-metal and angular punk, with a sense of fun that is purely infectious.

…and the gooey dream-pop of SOFA KING.

Birmingham based experimentalist Sofa King, is the musical output of pop-obsessed transgender individual Dianne Burdon. She treats reverb and feedback like a chemical formula. With raucous clashes of Tetris-like guitar beeps, to a drum beat that can just about keep up with Dianne’s vocal chants – be sure they’ll deliver on the promise of dad rock and the trans agenda.

plus Supersonic DJs til late.

**Please note that parts of this venue are only accessible via stairs.**

For any accessibility requirements please contact [email protected] 

Save the date!!!
SUPERSONIC FESTIVAL 17-19 July 2020

Named by the Guardian as “The UK’s best small festival – By embracing the heaviness in Birmingham’s heritage, and adding a strong dose of eccentricity, Supersonic is world-class”

For now, save the dates and slap them in your diaries folks, cause line-up announcements and tickets are on their way!

Get yourself all excited by watching our Supersonic 2019 highlights video!

We are celebrating 20 years of Capsule in 2020 with an extraordinary series of events and exhibitions as well as looking back on all the amazing artists we’ve had the pleasure of working with.

Some of our upcoming highlights include…

Chelsea Wolfe
Birth of Violence Acoustic Tour
with support from Jonathan Hultén
Coventry Cathedral
Saturday 21 March 2020
Buy Tickets

OM
+ support from
 PHARAOH OVERLORD
Friday 5 June 2020
The Crossing, Digbeth
TICKETS ON SALE FRIDAY 17 JAN AT 9AM

“OM’s show highlights fall within those moments the spiritual tension reaches its almost unshakable pinnacle.” The Quietus

Supersonic Kids Gig with Anna Palmer
Saturday 22 February 2020
Artefact, Stirchley
11.30 – 13.00
Tickets £3.00 here
Babes in Arms come free.

Recommended for children under 10.
All children must be accompanied by an adult.

Watch this space for more related events.

Supersonic presents…

OM
+ support from
PHARAOH OVERLORD

Friday 5 June 2020
The Crossing, Digbeth

Tickets go on sale 9am on Friday 17th January 2020

“OM’s show highlights fall within those moments the spiritual tension reaches its almost unshakable pinnacle.”

The Quietus

This summer we are proud to bring the legendary trio OM to Birmingham. Formed in 2003, they draw from a host of influences such as psychedelic rock, Middle Eastern Folk, Dub, Reggae and post-rock among other sounds. The band’s lyrics are heavily inspired by spirituality and various forms of religion, namely Eastern Orthodox and Middle Eastern variations.

Since their inception OM has released five studio albums, three live albums and has toured all over the world making appearances at a host of different festivals over the years. They deliver shimmering, spiritual/space rock, based around little more than a rootless bass line. Perfect loops, repeating and repeating and repeating with the flesh of the music simply melting away piece by piece – a live show with OM is the closest we’ll get to reaching some kind of heavenly enlightenment.

Joining are Pharaoh Overlord, made up of three members of the Finnish group Circle. This act have distilled thirty years of rock music into a slow, blistering, bubbling, psychedelic ooze. Imagine a perfect cross between the spellbinding guitar loops and rhythmic pulse of Circle and the stoner vibe of the 70’s rock obsessives. This is trip music in the old sense, from trance inducing repetitive rhythms to laid-back mellow jams.

THIS IS TMRW & SUPERSONIC
presents…

HOT SNAKES

+ guests TBA

TUESDAY 10th DECEMBER 2019

Hare & Hounds, Kings Heath
DOORS: 7.30PM
TICKETS: £17.50 HERE

Swami John Reis and Rick Froberg have been making noises together since high school. In 1986 it was the post-hardcore chime of Pitchfork. In 1991 it was the sprawling, multi-faceted arrangements of Drive Like Jehu. In 1999 it was the lean, mean swagger of Hot Snakes. Reis and Froberg are responsible for some of the most turbulent rock and roll of their, or any, generation.

Now, after a 14-year hiatus from the studio, Hot Snakes have kicked down the door back into our lives with their new album, Jericho Sirens, due out March 16 from Sub Pop.

Supersonic presents…

Chelsea Wolfe

Birth of Violence Acoustic Tour

with support from Jonathan Hultén

Coventry Cathedral

Saturday 21st March 2019

Doors 7pm

TICKETS ON SALE at 10:00am on Wednesday 9th October 2019

We whole-heartedly welcome the revered American songstress, Chelsea Wolfe to perform music from her latest album, Birth of Violence, in the epically beautiful setting of Coventry Cathedral. 

Songs from her sixth full-length release mark a departure from all the crackling electric guitar distortion its predecessors, instead her sound has transitioned into warmer realms of atmospheric acoustics, building simple folk ideas into a magnificent oceanic reverie. And yet it still feels every bit as dark and unsettling as the music she’s become famous for…

With lyrics outlining an internal awakening of feminine energy, a connection to the maternal spirit of the Earth, Birth of Violence takes a defiant stance against the destructive and controlling forces of a greedy and hostile patriarchy. The overall power of the language and delivery Chelsea Wolfe conveys, is bound to haunt all those beneath the grand Cathedral beams with both its grace and tension.

Her live performances have always been a passage for a powerful inner-energy, and while she has demonstrated a capacity to channel that somber beauty into a variety of forms, her gift as a songwriter is never more apparent than when she strips her songs down to a few key elements. With songs from Birth of Violence, this unmissable acoustic performance will highlight that her solemn majesty and ominous elegance are more potent than ever.

www.ChelseaWolfe.net

Supporting Chelsea is the Swedish artist & guitarist Jonathan Hultén. Known as being one of the creative forces of the band Tribulation, Jonathan has been active as a solo touring musician since 2016. Guitar and harmonies are the foundations of his
work, characterised by a calm yet dramatic atmosphere and tinged with a fearless approach to performance. His arrangements are inspired by folk and medieval choir-music mixed with influences ranging from Nick Drake to Dead Can Dance and many
stops in between.

GET STUCK INTO THAT! ^^^

Join us for another round of the Supersonic Podcast as we take a retrospective look at Supersonic Festival this year – the 15th edition – and it just so happens to be our 15th podcast!

synchronicity, aaaahhhhh 

Featuring live audio from performances at the festival.
Just SOME of the highlights of this year’s Supersonic.

DALEK | AIR LOOM | FATEN KANAAN | HEN OGLEDD | AJA | HHY & THE MACUMBAS | DANIEL HIGGS | PIGS PIGS PIGS PIGS PIGS PIGS | WORLDZERO | MATTERS

Then a look forward to our year round programme and our upcoming shows:

Oct 26th Supersonic Presents: SUNN + Anna Von Hausswolff
Oct 28th Thisistmrw & Supersonic presents Melt Banana & Pretty Grim
Nov 6th ENSŌ SONE: Qujaku & Impatv
Dec 12th The Utopia Strong + MATTERS

Jam packed with experimental goodness.

GO GET YOUR FIX

Tickets & further info to all our upcoming shows available HERE

IMPATV EXPERIMENTAL VIDEO WORKSHOP

Saturday 5 October, 4-6pm – FREE

Artefact
1464 Pershore Rd
Birmingham
B30 2NT

Prior to the Outlands ENSÕ SONE Tour, IMPATV will host an experimental video workshop revealing some of the techniques used to create their videos and visual work.

The artists will guide participants on a journey through their creative processes and approaches to their diverse and perpetual output. You will get to play with a variety of cameras used to capture live footage, and use different formats and processes for video mixing, new digital effects and outmoded, lo-fi technologies to create an experimental video work together. The outcomes of the workshop will be recorded for participants to have their own experimental video work to take away with them.

Equipment and techniques used in the workshop will include: Panasonic MX50, Panasonic WJ- AVE7, Roland V4ex, Korg Entrancer, Canon XL1s, Canon XF100, Hitachi FP7, Green Screen, video feedback loops.

The workshop is suitable for people interested in learning how to use a variety of video cameras and mixers to create experimental video work. No experience required, and you don’t have to be tech savvy! Minimum age 16.

To book a place please email [email protected] with ‘IMPATV Workshop’ in the subject line and one of our team will get back to you asap to confirm your place.

**Spaces are very limited so please only sign up if you know you can definitely attend the workshop on the day.**

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

IMPATV is a collaborative video and stage production project from UK artists Isadora Darke and Jamie Robinson. Using new digital technologies and live mixing methods combined with costumes and stage design they produce immersive installations, music videos, art and music productions across the realms of DIY, experimental and underground culture.

As well as working on their own projects such as immersive performance World Zero, they have collaborated widely with artists and created music videos for Charles Hayward, Casual Nun and Errant Monks amongst others and produced live recordings for Supernormal Festival, Sounds from the Other City and Woodland Gathering.

Supersonic + OUTLANDS present, Ensō Sone: QUJAKU & IMPATV

with special guests group A 

Wednesday 6th November 2019
Hare & Hounds, Kings Heath
Doors 7.30pm
Tickets £12 ADV

Coming to Brum is an unmissable audio-visual collaboration between Japanese psych band Qujaku and UK visual artists IMPATV courtesy of OUTLANDS – an experimental music touring network.

Developed during a residency in Japan in June 2019, this new production explores ideas of duality.  Sound triggers light that in turn creates form via an amalgam of heavy, rhythmic ambience combined with visual projections, lighting and stage design.  The resulting union will unfurl as an expansive spectacle to stimulate the senses – all housed in our favourite Kings Heath haunt, The Hare & Hounds.

Special guests group A will open the night with a spectacular new AV set.

GET TICKETS HERE: £12 ADV

QUJAKU

Formed in 2013, QUJAKU are a Japanese heavy psychedelic rock band based in Shizuoka. Their dark, heavy psychedelia is replete with rich distortion and feedback creating a unique decadent ambience. The apocalyptic sound they muster fuels an urge to release from the everyday to discover an ephemeral beauty behind the fierceness. The delicate yet strong leading voice, filled with destructive guitar, repetitive rhythmic percussion, and deep, bellowing bass combine to create Qujaku’s unique sound atmosphere to preoccupy the mind and enhance the experience.

Website: http://www.qujaku.com/home/

IMPATV

IMPATV is a collaborative video and stage production project from UK artists Isadora Darke and Jamie Robinson. Using new digital technologies and live mixing methods combined with costumes and stage design they produce immersive installations, music videos, live streaming, and art and music productions across the realms of DIY, experimental and underground culture. 

Website: https://impatv.com/

GROUP A – DEAD SLOW AHEAD

group A present a mix of synth heavy minimal wave, avant noise, striking visuals and performance art that carries the very breath of early industrial pioneers such as Throbbing Gristle or Cabaret Voltaire. Their early shows came as a shock to most spectators, non-stop waves of experimental noise, intensely emotional poetry readings and nude live-paintings. As the violinist Sayaka goes on a long hiatus, group A is evolving, currently the solo project of Tommi Tokyo, she continues to collaborate with Berlin based visual artist DEAD SLOW AHEAD for live A/V performances. The work of DEAD SLOW AHEAD centres around erratic geometry, slow strobe destruction, and negation of the visual comfort zone.

Website: www.facebook.com/groupAband/

We just want to take a moment to celebrate all the amazing reviews, write-ups & feedback we’ve had of our 15th edition!

★★★★★

THE GUARDIAN

“By embracing the heaviness in Birmingham’s heritage, and adding a strong dose of eccentricity, Supersonic is world-class”

READ THE GUARDIAN REVIEW HERE.

―

“2019 is a big deal in the Supersonic universe, as it marks the fifteenth time that the Festival has been held in Birmingham – the Home of Metal. So, what better way to celebrate than to kick things off with a doubleheader at the City’s iconic Town Hall venue and what better bands to do the honours than local lads, Godflesh and US noise veterans, Neurosis?”

READ THE ART DESK’S REVIEW HERE. 

―

“Supersonic Festival celebrates weirdness. It encourages unbridled creativity. It expands the imagination. It promotes the free and limitless pursuit of expression in order to expand the body, the mind, and the human spirit. It forges unlikely connections between ostensibly different areas, ideas, people and disciplines.”

READ THE QUIETUS REVIEW HERE. 

―

“Once the rattling drum machines of the latter give way to the glistening sludge of the former, the festival is well and truly underway. Neurosis’ set is crafted with a theatrical sensibility, and their imposing post-metal sound feels strangely at home set against the venue’s record-breaking pipe organ.”

READ COUNTERACT’S REVIEW HERE.

―

“a festival that creates a space for the music fan to escape any notion of ‘mainstream’ and take a personal journey of sonoric discovery and enlightenment…”

READ THE LUSH UK REVIEW HERE.

―

“Supersonic Festival has grown into one of the world’s most important events for new music. Cherry-picking the finest experimental music from all over the globe, its line-up grows increasingly diverse with each passing year. Now in its 15th year, Supersonic has become known as an event that consistently represents some of the globe’s best and most innovative music.”

READ LOUDERSOUND’S REVIEW HERE.

―

“Godflesh address the lighting engineer. “No spots, just blue on stage. We want it dark”. And dark they got. And heavy we got. It was glorious. If the rest of the weekend is this good then we’ll be just fine.”

READ THE GETINTOTHIS REVIEW HERE.

―

“This years’ fifteenth-anniversary event lived up to the strong heritage of what had gone before and also summed up the special nature that the festival has had since its inception.”

READ THE CIRCUIT SWEET REVIEW HERE.

―

“…this encouragement allows the audience at Supersonic and the extraordinary artists to gather as one big community in a celebration of the experimental arts that no one will forget.”

And thanks go to The Flight Network for listing Supersonic as one of their top 9 festivals in the UK!

Take a read of who we’ve been listed alongside HERE.

Supersonic Festival has sold out – there will be NO tickets available on the door.

Thanks x

NEW WEIRD BRITAIN: TALK
with John Doran

Sunday 15.10, Market Place Stage

In a recent series on BBC Radio 4, music journalist John Doran travelled across the county in search of the underground movement of musicians blossoming in the margins. There’s a new wave of underground musicians, sound artists, bands & producers creating immersive worlds for their audiences to participate in and approach that we at SUpersonic have championed from our inception. This year we have to perform; Lone Taxidermist, UKAEA, Farmer Glitch, AJA, The Seer. Doran will lead a Panel on Sunday to discuss the topic of New Weird Britain with Aja Ireland & Stephen Ives aka. Farmer Glitch. They will delve deep into the artistic practice and hopefully answer the thorny question: why is culture getting weirder?

DANIEL HIGGS IN CONVERSATION
with Radwan Ghazi Moumneh (Jerusalem In My Heart)

Sunday 18.10, Market Place Stage

“The pleasure of following Higgs… lies more in where he takes you than how gets you there.” – Pitchfork

Higg’s artistry has wedded music and visual art into a singular being, untended to be encountered as a conjuring force. In this relentless pursuit of the indivisible, Higgs births a new transubstantiation experience of sound and image We are delighted to have the opportunity to get an insight into Higg’s fascinating journey through his artistic practice.

SLEEVENOTES: TALK
Joe Thompson (Hey Colossus) in conversation with JR Moores

Saturday 17.20, Market Place Stage

Join Joe Thompson (Hey Colossus) in conversation with JR Moores, as he discusses his new book ‘Sleevenotes’. Much more than just a wise-cracking, experimentally punctuated, string of anecdotes about squat gigs in Belgium with improbably named noise rock bands – this book should be regarded as core curriculum reading for those just embarking on the path of rock music today. Once acclimatised to Joe Thompson’s easy-going, autodidact style you will find yourself punching the air (when you aren’t nodding furiously in agreement). 

Here it is!! The moment you’ve all been waiting for… The Supersonic Festival 2019 timetable !!! 

With just ONE WEEK TO GO, take a goosey gander through this and start mapping out your Supersonic weekend…

^{Przemek Branas: ‘I Is Somebody Else’}

After hosting many of our year-round events (and being dear friends/ fellow lovers of weird stuff), we are excited to announce what’s happening during the festival weekend at Centrala.

We are lucky to be just a short walk from this unique, multi-functional gallery where you can engage with the arts, culture, history & social politics of Central & Eastern Europe.

Over the Supersonic weekend, there will be a whole host of killer stuff to get involved with…

For Supersonic 2019 we will be partnering with Eastside Projects, incorporating Monster Chetwynd’s large-scale installation Hell Mouth 3 as this years third stage.

We are delighted to announce the final 8 artists added to our special 15th year anniversary line up.

Over at Eastside Projects, performing within the jaws of Monster Chetwynd’s Hell Mouth 3 are… 

Victim, Apostille, Valve, Paddy Steer, Water & Guttersnipe. 

On our main festival site we have…

Sly & The Family Drone & ICHI 

Already announced are headliners Neurosis supported by Godflesh who are opening the festivities with a very special concert at Town Hall Birmingham. Elsewhere across the weekend, and over at the main festival site in the cultural hub of Digbeth are; The Bug Feat. Moor Mother, The Body, Anna Von Hausswolff and Jerusalem In My Heart.

Victim are a heavy metal band. Victim founded in London one thousand nine hundred and ninety eight and live since two thousand and three. Victim are car crash (drums/vocals) pub fight (guitars/vocals) and iron fist (guitars/vocals). 

WWW.ONLINEVICTIM.COM 

Paddy is a Zelig-like character along the timeline of Manchester’s musical activity. His live performances err more daringly and admirably on the frontier of chaotic abstraction, expression and focussed blunder, dice rolling down the hill in case of duende, as from behind his stacked array of instruments, the anarchically intrepid punk gargles through a vocoder with his xylophone, all a-clatter under disco lights and doilies. 

WWW.PADDYSTEER.BANDCAMP.COM 

Drawing from an oblivion of influences from noise rock acts such as AIDS Wolf and Fat Worm of Error to the nihilistic openness of power-electronic pioneers including Philip Best, Guttersnipe’s songwriting is impossible to pin down. It skitters from one irrational idea to the next like some piece of absurdist theatre. And yet through all the hideous racket they create, their stage pseudonyms suggest a greater creative purpose than just making noise for noise sake. 

WWW.GUTTERSNIPE.BANDCAMP.COM

Few constants remain in Sly’s history, but collaboration is still at its core. For this special Supersonic performance, we invite artist, performer, experimental vocalist and composer, Sharon Gal into the fray. Her work relates to sound, architecture, live performance and participatory art, exploring the psychology of sound and its relationship with space. 

Sly present a new collaboration alongside Sharon (and others) with music for acoustic and electronically treated voice, drums and amplified electronics. 

WWW.FAMILYDRONENOISE.LIFE 

ICHI, from Nagoya in Japan, takes the notion of a one-man band to new limits, combining his quirky handmade instrument inventions. Somehow there’s an ancient, ritualistic feel to his performances – he’s like the misplaced leader of a tribe. To see ICHI live is to witness something so playful and unusual you know that you’re experiencing something entirely new. It`s fun, it`s danceable, it`s exciting. 

 WWW.LOSTMAP.COM/ICHI 

CZN stands for Copper, Zinc and Nickel, the raw materials used by percussionist and sculptor Joao Pais Filipe to make gongs and bells in his Portuguese studio. CZN is also the alchemical sound of Joao in collaboration with percussionist Valentina Magaletti (Tomaga, Vanishing Twin, uuuu).

The duo create rich tapestries of hypnotic rhythms, evolving the sound of drums and percussion into vivid textures: visceral timbres and telescoping rhythms that surround and beguile, and which hint at the meditative states of spiritual jazz as much as the cerebral counterpoint of Minimalist Composition.

Drummer and multi-instrumentalist Valentina Magaletti is possibly best known as both the drummer of psych band The Oscillation and for her work with Tom Relleen as experimental band Tomaga, whose music has been described as sounding like ‘radio messages from a distant constellation alerting us to the existence of art forms we had barely imagined’. Valentina was also the drummer on Blackest Ever Black releases; Raime and Moin, has recorded with Shit and Shine and is the drummer with London band Vanishing Twin.

João Pais Filipe is a drummer/percussionist and sound sculptor from Porto. His career as a musician is characterized by the approach to a wide range of styles and languages, in bands like Sektor 304, HHY & The Macumbas (who you can catch this year at Supersonic 2019), Talea Jacta, Paisiel, Rafael Toral Space Quartet. He is also a Gong maker and Cymbalsmith.

Together they have created ‘The Golden Path’. Beginning with a one-off recording session in Porto in Spring 2018, the duo has crafted a debut LP released as a collaboration between Porto’s Lovers & Lollipops collective and Tomaga’s Negative Days label.

Listen here…

With the Big Fifteenth edition of Supersonic fast approaching, we are proud to announce the workshops taking place over the festival weekend. There’s something for everyone and LOTS to get involved with!

Our audiences are at the heart of what we do. That’s why we strive to give them experiences which get them closest to the things they love.

So if you fancy taking a breather between our stonking live acts – we have some exceptional workshops planned for you to get involved with!

Information for how you can register your interest and book a place can be found below…

FAT OUT’S LATE–NIGHT KARAOKE DUNGEON: BLACK SABBATH SPECIAL 

 
A one-off Karaoke Dungeon especially for Supersonic, celebrating 50 years of Black Sabbath and Capsules extraordinary Home of Metal exhibition.  
 
Tonight, Fat Out I’m gonna be ….  
 
Every Sabbath singer will get a Fat Out makeover so you can really live your heavy metal fantasy. We will have all the wigs, lashes, sunglasses and waistcoats you will ever need to look like the Sabbath star you really are.  
 
And in-between War Pig & Paranoid we will allow other tunes to be sung cos as much as we love us some heavy riffs, trashy pop will always be in our hearts. 

Saturday 21.40 – 23.00

Drop in. No sign-up required.

FAT OUT’S ONE STOP TRANSFORMATION SHOP 

 
Returning to Supersonic again laden with all the (biodegradable) glitter & googley eyes they can carry is Fat Out’s One Stop Transformation Shop and with them their hoards of rowdy glitter witches.  
 
Over the weekend come give yourself to Fat Out and let them transform you into your most fabulous self, ready to tear up the Supersonic pit and pull all the shapes on the dance floor.  
 
Come as you are. Leave as your most party-ready self. 

Drop in. No sign-up required.

THE CRACKLER – A SYNTH BUILDING WORKSHOP 

Farmer Glitch (a.k.a. Stephen Ives), a member of electronic mavericks Hacker Farm and REEL is renowned for customising the discarded – transforming rusted buckets and old cameras into potent noise-machines. In addition, he specialises in his own line of compact and affordable noise-makers to suit a range of tastes.  

This year he will deliver workshops to build ‘The Crackler’, an interpretation of the experimental circuit originally developed at the Steim Institute in the 1960s – The Crackle Box. 

Sunday 16.00 – 17.50

Advance sign-up. Limited to 10 people.
Book your place by emailing [email protected] with ‘the_crackler’ in the title.
Please include your name & contact number for the festival weekend.

www.farmerglitch.net 

DRONE ORCHESTRA

Before more complicated resonant-bodied instruments came the bladder fiddle, commonly known in England as a drone. The drone comprises an inflated animal bladder secured to a large stick by a taut gut string. Bowing the string produces a resonant drone amplified by the bladder.  

Build your drone, rehearse, then perform at the festival in a 10-piece drone orchestra. 

Part one (making) – Saturday 16.10 – 17.40

Part two (rehearsal) – Sunday 18.00 – 18.50

Part three (performance) – Sunday 19.00 – 19.30

Advance sign-up. Limited to 10 people.
Book your place by emailing [email protected] with ‘drone_orchestra’ in the title.
Please include your name & contact number for the festival weekend.

SAVE ME IN CLAY

^{Porcelain milagro necklace by CHW Ceramics}

DYSFUNCTIONAL BINGO

Pit your drawing wits against another in a one-minute album cover draw off. DJ Hobbyhorse (1970’s fake mahogany veneered bingo machine and Clubland Royalty) randomly select albums from featured Supersonic artists to be drawn by willing festival audience members. Come render your one-minute homage. 

Sunday 16.40 – 17.50

Drop in. No sign-up required.

Air Loom is the latest project from composer Sarah Angliss. With ancient instruments and bespoke electroacoustic techniques, Sarah has toured the UK performing Air Loom live with vocalist Sarah Gabriel and percussionist Stephen Hiscock.

Featuring voice, theremin, recorders, percussion, robotics, electronics and a rarity centre-stage – the Latvian clavisimbalum (a sonorous, fourteenth-century cousin of the harpsichord). Its plucked, soft iron strings ring with a rich, dark reverberance – a sound that hails from Eastern European folk and the Renaissance court. Angliss adds voices in close harmony, recorder, theremin, percussion and robotic carillon, an instrument she devised and built to play bells at inhuman speeds, creating a haze of delicate, metallic sound.

Angliss is joined by vocalist Sarah Gabriel and percussionist Stephen Hiscock. As they play, their sounds are deftly contorted, fragmented and recombined using Angliss’ digital inventions. Her own variant of the loop pedal stretches every strand of sound subtly as it plays. This transforms the most consonant music into something more angular as it makes beguiling musical collisions – the precarious harmonic terrain of Angliss’ signature soundworld.

“Music possessed of an eerie instability…a whole universe unto itself brimming with fresh propositions and new directions…

a shimmering minimalist masterpiece”

Wire Magazine

Check out the full release here…

Sarah Angliss is a composer making dreamlike performances where the total theatre of the sound’s creation is as striking as the music itself. Her music reflects her eclectic background as a classically trained composer, electronic artist and folk musician.

A prolific live musician, Sarah’s known for her skills and augmented techniques on theremin, an instrument she combines live with Max, vocals, recorder, saw, keyboard and her many found sounds and field recordings. On stage, she’s often accompanied by musical automata – machines she’s been devising and building since 2005 to give her performance an arresting and uncanny physical presence. Thematically, she often plays with the resonances between folklore and our perceptions of machines. Her music often plays with notions of electrical mysticism and the uncanny.

Stephen Hiscock is a composer, drummer and percussionist. His composing work has covered film, advertisements, theatre and the concert hall, having had works performed internationally, notably a national tour of Ghana. Stephen has spent several very happy study periods in Ghana learning traditional styles of music with master musicians from the National Dance Company of Ghana and The Pan African Orchestra.

Described by Le Monde as ‘As fine an actor as she is a singer,’ soprano Sarah Gabriel made her USA debut as Lucy Lockit (Britten The Beggar’s Opera) conducted by Lorin Maazel and her European debut as Eliza Doolittle in Robert Carsen’s triumphant production of My Fair Lady at Théâtre du Châtelet, Paris, opposite Alex Jennings as Higgins. Sarah has given recitals of music spanning 300 years and as a soloist with orchestra, she has performed the major oratorio repertoire, world premieres, operetta, musical theatre, and concert arias with ensembles including London Sinfonietta, Manchester Camerata, English Chamber Orchestra.

Catch this mind-spangling amalgamation of sound by a formidable trio of musicians at Supersonic 2019…

“could easily be the sound of a squadron of tanks invading

the dance floor of some infernal disco” 

The Quietus

Forging a completely idiosyncratic combination of power, control, tenderness, miscontrol and more power, Hey Colossus acutely channel the best of your record collections and spit them back out into some quite astonishing shows and releases.

Coming out of London and the South West of England, Hey Colossus are one of Europe’s great live bands. Since 2003 the six-piece has been driving around the continent with their “pirate ship” backline of broken amps and triple-guitar drang, elevating audiences in every type of venue imaginable; a doctor’s waiting room in Salford, an industrial unit in Liege and a vast field next to a river in Portugal. Wherever they may roam.

Hey Colossus have undergone a spectacular metamorphosis in the last three years, since the 2015 Rocket Recordings double-drop of ‘In Black And Gold’ and ‘Radio Static High’. These releases displayed not only a band with a work rate to put most their contemporaries to shame, but one arriving at an atmospheric and rewarding sound with as much flair for the beguiling as the barbaric.

“Standard-bearers for post-millennial British music which is au fait with punk and hardcore while not being punk or hardcore”

The Quietus

The latest release, ‘Four Bibles’ is their twelfth studio album and the first to be released by London label ALTER. Recorded by Ben Turner at Space Wolf Studios in Somerset, it’s their most direct album yet and follows a well-documented trajectory of evolution that began (in the truest sense) with 2011’s RRR for Riot Season and continued across three albums for Rocket Recordings.

Lead vocalist Paul Sykes sounds more in focus than before, dialling down the effects and using reverb/delay to carry his lyrics rather than smother. The band has also fine-tuned to leave some room for extra depth. Piano, electronics and violin (by Daniel O’Sullivan of This is not This Heat / Grumbling Fur) all find a way in amongst a familiar mesh of interlacing guitars, wrapped around a taut rhythm section. Like every other Hey Colossus record before, the line-up has altered and the sounds reflect this.

As guitarist Jonathan Richards puts it: “After 12 years functioning in a noiserock/doom/kraut/whatever scene of sorts and being aware of unwanted repetition, we feel it is more subversive for us to compose songs with rigid song structures than it is to absentmindedly clang off another riff-athon.”

The band talk to CLASH mag about the new single ‘It’s a Low” from the album…

“The song came together pretty easily to start with then mutated into something that was much more intricate, needing really close attention. The now-departed Roo’s pinching of the piano and Daniel O’Sullivan’s dashing viola really lifted the whole thing in the finale. Not our usual mood, but good we can still play with it all 15 years in.”

“Chinks of pop light shine through, but this is still raw uncompromising stuff” The Guardian

After giving us those shimmy-shakes at Centrala back in December for our end of year show, we’re pretty damn chuffed to welcome back pals Hey Colossus to this year’s 15th edition of Supersonic Festival.

It was one heck of a party! Join us for the next one?

Hey Colossus will be performing alongside Yob, Big Lad and Savage Realm at our Friday aftershow party – limited tickets left!

Get your Supersonic afterparty tickets here.

“A strangely haunting yet beautiful bouquet of nocturnal, electronic blooms ranging from poignant ambient vignettes to chamber-like pop, from Brooklyn’s Faten Kanaan

– a gifted musical story-teller”

 

Faten is a NY based artist. Her performances slowly build songs by live-looping them, without the use of sequencers or arpeggiators. Cyclical patterns are central to her compositions, with the exploration of harmony and counterpoint as narrative tools. Sound & silence are used as intuitive gestures to tell a wordless story.

Inspired by cinematic forms: from sweeping landscapes and quiet character studies, to the patterned tension of horror film soundtracks; she focuses on bringing a visceral touch to electronic music. In symbiosis with technology is an appreciation for the vulnerability of human limitations and subtle nuances.

 

 

We asked Faten some questions ahead of her performance at Supersonic Festival 2019…

 

Each performance I give is a journey through a narrative arc, without the use of vocals.
All the music is played live, with one synth and a loop pedal. I also use a minimal choreography of gestures as an extension of the sound. In the course of this journey, my intention is to set a mood, present certain archetypes/scenarios,
create an experience both private & shared and conjure a ritual to suspend time.

FOLLOW FATEN ON FACEBOOK / INSTAGRAM