‘A primal jam, fuelled by pure carnal libido, so get together with some inclined bodies and slap skin together.’ – PITCHFORK

Once again, heading for us like a freight train – the almighty avant-rock giants Oxbow.

***AND HERE IS THEIR BRAND NEW VIDEO FOR TRACK ‘COLD & WELL-LIT PLACE’ FROM FORTHCOMING ALBUM ‘THIN BLACK DUKE’ OUT MAY 5TH***

‘The quiet kill off the country road, the time before the time when everything went wrong and the last 16 hours of that great love affair are the seminal beginnings of OXBOW.

Designed to be the last aural will and testament of failed humanity, OXBOW actually garnered listeners from among the ranks of the fucked, with their 1989 release FUCKFEST. Followed by KING OF THE JEWS (1991), THE BALLS IN THE GREAT MEAT GRINDER COLLECTION (1991), LET ME BE A WOMAN (1995), SERENADE IN RED (1996), AN EVIL HEAT (2002) LOVE THAT’S LAST (CD+DVD) (2006), THE NARCOTIC STORY (2007) as well as various singles and dance remixes, OXBOW has met with increasing critical acclaim and popular support.’

The OXBOW core membership — DAN ADAMS/bass, GREG DAVIS/drums, EUGENE ROBINSON/voice, and NIKO WENNER/guitars+keyboards — has been supplemented by the subtle stylings of LYDIA LUNCH, KLAUS FLOURIDE, JARBOE, MARIANNE FAITHFULL, RICHARD KERN (SONIC YOUTH et al), JON RASKIN from the ROVA SAX QUARTET, and a string section that would make Barry White wince. 

Though claiming San Francisco as their hometown, OXBOW performed first in London, England in 1990 and have toured Europe and the U.S and almost every other place people will pay them to hear them play extensively for nearly 3 decades. With their unstoppable DIY brute force they have carved new paths in the global underground of alternative noise rock, across which their fans follow loyally.

The experimental outfit is music for the damned, drudging onwards in their quest of carnage.Their notoriety comes firstly via the arresting music they churn out and secondly via their tempestuous live shows, led by carnal pit-fighting gentleman – Eugene S Robinson, with his heavy handed heckler response tactics and striking fearsome onstage presence.

Champions of the scene they hailed from, with a fierce aversion to label politics and demanding their own artistic freedom, the band run their own independent record label, CFY Records.

Oxbow’s 2007 album The Narcotic Story was named the number one album in the “Best of 2007” by Rock-A-Rolla magazine, and was listed with three other bands’ albums in the nomination of Joe Chiccarelli as ‘Producer of the Year’ at the 50th Grammy Awards. Regular collaborators with Steve Albini, Eugene and Nikko Wenner bring us their well-oiled monstrous machine of sound, built from a plethora of knowledge from nearly 3 decades of expedition through the alternative underground of music.

But not ones to rest on their laurels, they continually experiment with new ways to express the Oxbow story. Their multi-dimensional music has seen various set-ups, collaborations and even an Oxbow Orchestra – which we were graced with at Supersonic 2012.

‘Oxbow‘s trademark elements…the jagged-edged noise rock foundation, the bluesy/Led Zeppelin-ish overtones, and Eugene Robinson‘s squirming vocals (somewhere between a Baptist preacher and an unhappy two-year-old).’ – ALLMUSIC

And now, they add a new dimension.

The OXBOW CHOIR INTRANSIGENT

The tendency in the face of the unbelievable is to not believe it, and is if our perpetual faves Oxbow didn’t tend this way enough, they return to SUPERSONIC 2017 with an ensemble of two parts — the band accompanied by a chamber choir and volunteer vocalists — who will perform notated Oxbow music, carrying the crucial elements of what constitutes the Oxbow experience into terra unknown. Absolutely and totally exactly what a religious observance should look and sound like.

In the coming weeks we will be telling you more about this one-off SUPERspecial performance and doing a call out for volunteer vocalists!

One time only. Not to be missed!

GET YOUR TICKETS NOW!

If you fancy having your face peeled off by some speed-of-light grind core – Melt Banana will be firing up our stage with their inferno of noise rock at Supersonic this year.

The band, thoughtfully, have an FAQ section on their website…which we’ll dip in and out of on this blog to give you in the ins/outs straight from the horse’s mouth.

Q: Who is MELT-BANANA?

Answer: Main factors of MELT-BANANA are YAKO, who is singer of the band and writes all lyrics and some of the songs, and AGATA who plays the guitar and writes most of the backtracks of the songs. So far, MELT-BANANA has been helped by many musicians, such as:

SUDOH, TOSHIAKI / RIKA HAMAMOTO / ONOTETSU / KIKUCHI / OSHIMA (aka Watchman) / NATSUME / OBOKATA (aka Obiwan) / SAKATA / DAVE WITTE / TERADA / YOKO KUROSE / UKI / INOMATA / TARO TATSUMAKI (with MxBxLite)

Since forming in 1993 the band has released 13 Albums, 28 EPs, appear on numerous compi’s/collabs and have toured worldwide extensively, winning high profile fans such as Steve Albini, Kurt Cobain and Lou Reed. Their first Peel Session in 1999 was described by the man himself as ‘Simply one of the most extraordinary performances I have ever seen and ever heard…just mesmerising, absolutely astonishing.’ and still they continue to stun live audiences around the world today with their raucous energy.

Q: What type of music?

Answer: Some people say they are noise band, some people say they are so-called no wave band, some people say they are hardcore band, some people say their music is like roller coaster in an amusement park… It is hard to categorise their music, but basically they are rock band with a spice of punk taste. The easiest way to find out is to listen to their music.

Hurtling their way through thrashing cymbals, sirens, lasers, firework guitar riffs, with Yaka’s vocals biting chunks into the frenzied texture, this band is not for the faint hearted. No strangers to greatness, having toured with Melvins and Napalm Death, Melt Banana rose from Tokyo’s ferocious underground with their unorthodox, unclassifiable and undeniable brilliance and continue to jack-hammer the brains of punks, metal heads and beard scratchers a-like with their relentless aversion to sitting still.

‘Melt-Banana have remained like an eye of a hurricane that’s 10 times crazier than the hurricane itself.’ – PITCHFORK.

Q: Is Yako singing in Japanese?

Answer: I am singing in English, and you can find all of the lyrics inside of CD booklets if you are interested. When I first started singing in a band, I was singing in Japanese, but I changed to English. I thought that English would fit more to my style of singing.

Q: Which album makes you frothy?

Answer: Human beings can live because they can forget things that they don’t like.

Q: What is your motto/philosophy?

Answer: For today, jump before you look.

Jumping, nay, diving-head-first-straight-for-the-jugular is something Melt Banana are particularly well versed in. A common feature in their live set is a succession of seriously short songs which get straight to the point.

Perhaps this is an influence of musical pals Napalm Death – who on album Scum recorded the shortest ever punk song coming in at just 4 seconds long. A longstanding kinship between the two bands has most recently seen a split 7inch released on Record Store Day in 2016 featuring 2 tracks on each side. Available [here]

Since releasing their debut 7’EP Hedgehog in 1994, Melt Banana have played with varying line-ups but it’s Yako and Agata’s unique compositional flair which has lead them through the years and given them the notoriety they so deserve. The duo have cemented themselves as pioneers of noise-rock.

The studio album Fetch, released September 2013, saw the band transition to a duo which they now tour as live and somehow still sound and perform as if equipped with army of noise makers behind them…

‘Japanese noise assassins Melt-Banana may well have been thrashing out blistering rockets of screeching, avant garde, hardcore for well over twenty years now, but my gawd do they still feel like a pulverising assault on the senses.’ – THE LINE OF BEST FIT.

Don’t you even THINK about missing Melt Banana at this year’s Supersonic.

Don’t. You. EVEN.

GET YOUR TICKETS NOW!

Oh and one more important thing to note:

Q: What is your favourite type of sandwich?

Answer: Avocado.

http://www.melt-banana.net/

“Laura Cannell conjures a sonic portal between the past and present.” – The Wire

Critically acclaimed instrumentalist Laura Cannell deconstructs her bow to produce haunting melodies from her violin and deconstructs our stuffy view on the recorder by blowing through two simultaneously and harmoniously with gusto. In doing so, she constructs a flourishing fragmental sonority heralding the ancient, traditional music of the instruments into the present through experimental improvisation.

Her sensitivity, emotiveness and wild flare will transport you into a new realm of tranquil solitude. 2016 saw the release of Laura’s third solo album Simultaneous Flight Movement to critical acclaim, appearing in numerous end of year lists.

Where did she come from? Based in rural East Anglia, Laura Cannell’s work draws on the emotional influences of the landscape whilst simultaneously breathing new life into lost and forgotten melodies from the 5th – 14th centuries.

Long self-taught sessions alongside dedicated training gave Laura a foundation to build upon, but it is her fearless strive to break away from rules and tradition and her thirst for collaboration and experimentation that elevates her body of work to courageous peaks.

“At school, I used to play for medieval banquets in a haunted pub in Bungay. But I just get bored of there being rules, I don’t like being told what to do. And I’m really anti-twee. People think: ‘Recorders, how lovely!’ But they’ve got balls and energy – they can really bite.”

For more on the Woman blowing Recorder prejudice away click [here]

With longstanding time spent in the highly regarded Horses Brawl duo as well as her Early Music missions, Laura then went on to pastures new. She has since collaborated with electronic musician Hoofus, plays in new trio Oscilanz with Ralph Cumbers (aka Bass Clef) and has worked with renowned drummer Charles Hayward (This Heat) to name but a few. She even founded her own record label Brawl Records in 2005.

“She is uniquely able to fuse inspiration with interpretation, delivering scintillating, programmatic works in miniature based on everything from Homerically florid psalms to the pioneering music of the 12th century apothecary, scientist and theologist Hildegard von Bingen. Obscurity is no boundary here.” – The Quietus

For an interview with Laura from The Quietus click [here]

Laura’s dexterity, determination and devotion to seeking the new is culminated in her all encompassing 3 solo albums. Beginning with Quick Sparrows Over the Black Earth released in July 2014 where haunting chords move the heavy air of the church as fiddle drones drift across the flatlands of East Anglia in single-take atmospheric improvisations, she has continued this stylistic approach to recording.

Her latest release Simultaneous Flight Movement was recorded on the day of the EU referendum in single takes inside Southwold lighthouse.

“I went to the Methodist chapel round the corner to do my vote, and then stood in this enormous tower that looks out over the sea, playing fragments of music from all over Europe. Thinking about it going up through the tower, going out past the prism in the top, I just thought about all these ridiculous borders we’re putting up between each other. I was standing there, firmly planted, thinking, ‘Please don’t go!’”

“As soon as something begins to sound like a genre, I begin to lose interest.”

This March sees the launch of a new performance series at Cafe Oto [Modern Ritual] exploring ideas of ritual through music and words, evoking real and fictional landscapes. Featuring solo sets from Charles Hayward, Laura Cannell and Hoofus and a new collaboration between Laura & Charles. More info [here]

Then this June, Laura Cannell graces us with her glorious sound at Supersonic Festival – a performance not to be missed!

GRAB YOUR TICKETS NOW!

“NOT SAFE IS HOW ART EXISTS. NOT SAFE FOR WORK IS THE WORK.” – Jenny Hval

Returning to our stage once again with her rapturous sound, Jenny Hval. She is an artist who’s extensive archive projects a stunning mass of expression; music, literature, visual & performance art, all coalesced into one body.

The New York Times defines her writing as “taking a scalpel to the subjects of gender politics and sexuality.” and with her most recent album ‘Blood Bitch’ co-produced by noise artist Lasse Marhaug, she boldly continues on with her incisions with delicate precision.

Gender fluid, Art-form fluid and Physical fluid. Fluidity itself is an ideology which flows through Jenny’s artistry.

With early beginnings as vocalist in a gothic metal band called Shellyz Raven, to studying creative writing and performance in Australia, Jenny arrived back in Norway in 2006 and released her debut EP Cigars which was nominated for a Spellemannprisen (the Norwegian equivalent of Grammy awards).

Adopting the name Rockettothesky, she then went on to release two studio albums – To Sing You Apple Trees in 2006, and Medea in 2008. This is where we could try and define the earlier albums and their genres and outline the progression into the mix of genres Hval has arrived at now…but this would be counterintuitive to the representation of Jenny as an artist, as her interdisciplinary art cannot simply be pigeon-holed into music genres, or even ‘experimental’.

“…it’s a disease to call everything experimental because everything is experimental…I mean, it’s experimental to live! So that’s why I keep returning to ‘I make pop music’. It’s also because I’m not so interested in being put anywhere, and that’s not because I think it’s wrong to be put in boxes when an individual writer says something about my work. That I don’t think about so much. The fact that I’m asked so much and people seem to be so in need of placing music on a map….you can ask me but I think it’s maybe more fruitful to turn around and ask why do we need to? And why do we need to say ‘Jenny Hval is not pop music?’ Why is that so important to us?”

Rather than genre, there are coherent themes in Jenny’s work, spanning the audio and visual. Her artistic voice is altogether present, accessible and obscurely complex at the same time. Much like in her interviews, she turns and questions the audience.

Her live show has gradually progressed from a more traditional live band set up to an avant-garde performance with costumes, dancers, speeches and live DJ. This seems to be a return to the art forms she originally studied and a more organic vehicle to deliver the messages within Hval’s complex art; as a performer, she seems totally free.

Under her own name, the prolific artist has released 4 more albums, Viscera (2011), Innocence Is Kinky (2013), Apocalypse girl (2015) and in 2016 most recent album, Blood Bitch. The latest release seemingly encapsulates many of her previously visited themes; artistic ritual, failure, capitalism, blood – but this time through a different, more positive, playful gaze.

“where Apocalypse dealt with, ‘you look at yourself in the mirror and you fail’, this one is like ‘oh, but I can walk through the mirror’ and there’s a crazy, creative realist world there I can partake in instead.”

With the release of numerous captivating online video’s to accompany the tracks and a newly curated show, Hval has innately created an alluring atmosphere around this album with her collaborators.

For an in-depth interview with Jenny visit [here]

Jenny Hval and co. brought the new show to UK audiences last night in London and collaborated with the incredible make-up artist Lone Taxidermist. Check out the Instagram [here] for a sneak peak into what’s to come at Supersonic Festival this year.

We anticipate that after her performance this June we will all be in awe and questioning, in the words of Jenny herself taken from her last tune on the Blood Bitch album, ‘Lorna’:

“Does anyone have any language for it? Can we find it?”

Do not miss her set at Supersonic. Tickets on sale now. With group ticket offer available: 5 for the price of 4. [here]

SEE YOU THERE!

“Everything is a remix. Lots of people’s ideas are always formed from others.” – Antonio Roberts

This Saturday, March 4th, in association with Hare & Hounds 10th Anniversary Series, we bring you Steve Davis DJ set with support from Graham Dunning and his Mechanical Techno Set and local producer/DJ – Rocky Steps. Such a stellar, alt-DJ line-up would not be complete however without some mind-bending live visuals to boot.

Hellocatfood is the alias of Antonio Roberts, a New Media artist and Curator based in Birmingham, UK. His artwork uses glitch art, hacking and technology-driven processes to explore issues surrounding copyright, remixing and free culture.

Roberts’ technically complex and playfully innovative work combines programming, video and collage (both digital and physical).

He has provided visuals for the likes of MTV, Com Truise, Elmo Sexwhistle, Henry Homesweet, My Panda Shall Fly and has exhibited work at Loud Tate 2014. Aside from shows in the UK, Roberts has exhibited his animated GIFs and audio-visual works as far away as Iran, France, and the United States. He is an Associate Curator at Vivid Projects and Lecturer at University of Westminster.

Roberts is involved in the debates around Creative Commons and sharing upon which the Open Source community is founded. 

“I think Copyright is a mess because it tries to dictate how we should be creative. Creativity is free-flowing. Copyright, and its cousins patents and trademarks, justify their existence by saying that these restrictions encourage innovative new ideas but what they do is just stop us.”

For an in-depth interview with Antonio regarding What rights in Copyright? Click [here]

Antonio is also a part of Algorave: The Live coding movement that makes next-level electronic music. Although not a music creator, the artist generates responsive visuals that keep in line with the coding aspect of Algorave. As he writes, “the main point is that it’s all crafted live.” To understand more visit [here].

As if all this wasn’t engaging enough, the highly-active artist has also just announced a new exhibition which he is Curating at Leicester’s Independent Cinema, Art Centre and Café Bar – Phoenix – this April/May.

Delve further in to Antonio’s archive [here].

We’ve no doubt that HelloCatFood will elevate this night of weird and wonderful music to an all encompassing, SUPERsonic and visual experience – so come get your glitch on.

[Here] is the Facebook event page

GRAB YOUR TICKETS [here]

and don’t miss out on our 4 for £40 offer available online only!

‘…feels like music I’ve been subconsciously craving without even knowing it exists.’ – PITCHFORK

Colin Stetson was born and raised in Ann Arbor and spent a decade in San Francisco and Brooklyn honing his formidable talents as a horn player eventually settling in Montreal in 2007.

From early beginnings in experimental jazz group Transmission Trio:

Stetson has gone on to collaborate with artists such as Tom Waits, Arcade  Fire,  Bon  Iver,  TV  On  The  Radio,  Feist,  Laurie  Anderson,  Lou  Reed,  Bill  Laswell,  Evan Parker,  The  Chemical  Brothers,  Animal  Collective,  Hamid  Drake,  LCD  Soundsystem,  The  National, Angelique Kidjo, Fink, and David Gilmore – to name but a few.

But above all, he is a solo artist in his own right, who has crafted a unique sonic & visual experience through avant garde and extended techniques, equipped with an eclectic musical palate.

On his solo work, The Quietus says Colin ‘has totally eclipsed the flare of these heavyweights with a series of brutalist yet ambitious and exhilarating records’. He produces enigmatic, physical, strenuous music which courses and caterwauls through a reminiscence of dark jazz, post-rock and industrial electronica.

Colin has perfected the technique of circular breathing and with his live shows, literally ties himself to the grizzly beast; as the performer and instrument grapple together in a hypnotic whirl they almost blur into one.

“I guess where it started to get interesting for me was when I realised you didn’t have to only learn from or mimic other players of your chosen instrument, regardless of what it might be. So much more can be gleaned if you do the same thing with other instruments and different sound sources entirely.”– Colin Stetson

For an fascinating interview with Stetson about Mastering the Flow click [here]

Considered a prodigy in his teens, Colin was thrust in to the limelight; in freshman year he was instantly playing in a sax quartet and the main symphonic band whilst majoring in visual art. He speaks of how during this time ‘the challenge to live up to the hype is quite real.’ and as a result he has maintained a solid work ethic throughout his life, ‘it was just an all-intensive and personally challenging regimen, which pretty much sets you up for a lifetime of living that way.’.

When it comes to mastering an instrument in the way Colin has, many may envisage a vitamin D deficient recluse locked away in a dark room running scales until their fingers drop off. Practice is of course a huge factor but also the physical demands of performing in this way requires peak fitness – and Colin is something of a musical athlete.

Natural ability, practice, eclectic palate, work ethic and artistic collaboration are what contribute to creating this intriguing, well rounded musician but something which ties this all together beautifully is the immediate emotivity you hear when you put on a Colin Stetson record or watch him perform.

It was his long standing dream to work with musical hero Tom Waits. One hazy early morning in his San Fransisco home at the age of 23 the phone rings, Colin drearily answers and it’s Tom Waits on the line. He’s got his number through a mutual friend, bassist Matthew Sperry. This friend had changed the course of his life. For the next year and a half Colin and Matthew played regularly in Tom Waits’ band until one day, Colin received another life-altering phone call saying Matthew had been hit by a car on his way to work and had been killed, leaving behind a wife and 2 year old daughter. The much-loved Matthew’s untimely death had a profound effect on Stetson as he states:

“I tell the first part of the story to set up the second part of the story – what we think is all important and life-altering events when we’re young, they pale in comparison to the things that actually do touch us on a real meaningful level and change us in ways that I think are long lasting and are actually what we should be looking for in our lives.”

Such sentiments and sensitivity can certainly be heard in Colin’s rich, all encompassing sound.

Listen and watch his most recent release from the forthcoming album ‘All this I do for Glory’

Out April 28th 2017

[pre-order here]

TICKETS ON SALE NOW!

About to release their 6th studio album ‘Song of the Rose’, the prolific Arbouretum continue to wonder on through the wilderness of rock. Since their first release in 2004 the band have been perfecting their craft of storytelling in song, both lyrically and sonically.

Signed to the fiercely independent label Thrill Jockey records, Arbouretum have been called “the best of the millennial classic rock bands, a guitar-fuzzed powerhouse.” Hailing from Baltimore US, the band travels through the ever changing landscape of alt-rock with effortless motion. From brooding Americana, to dark folk, sludge, doom, psych-rock and a fleck of prog, the expanding structures lead us from the mystical, poetic lyrics of David Heumann, told over grinding grungy riffs, into guitar solos which wind into improvisations between a group of respectful players painting a vivid sonic picture in homage to their predecessors.

THE QUIETUS described 2013’s album ‘Coming out of the Fog’ as ‘..the album Neil Young and Crazy Horse should have delivered instead of the disappointing Psychedelic Pill.’

Arbouretum’s lyrics explore elements of philosophy, mysticism, redemption, and the implications of human “progress.”

“Heumann is the kind of songwriter who, when he slips in a lyric about a tree or a bird or a running river, seems to have actually observed such objects, not just read about them in books. There’s something elemental about his fuzzed-drenched, Americana-infused anthems, something both grounded and deeply mystical.”- Jennifer Kelly, Pop Matters

2011’s album The Gathering was part inspired by the ‘The Red Book’ written by philosopher Jung in 1913 and throughout the course of his writings Heumann has continued to muse over the bigger questions whilst meandering through picturesque landscapes which his Instagram mostly reveals.

“If you look at creative people throughout history, one thing that many of them have in common is going on walks. I like to put myself in that company. I prefer the scenery of the natural world than that of the human-made world. So, in that sense, it does inform my writing, though not in a literal way.” – David Heumann

From their forthcoming release, titular track “Song of the Rose” completes a trilogy of songs from past records, calling back to “Song of the Nile” and “Song of the Pearl,” which have their roots in examining Taoist and Gnostic mythic traditions. Fittingly, “Rose” is also a nod to Heumann’s ancestor Richard Lovelace, a 17th century poet who penned “The Rose.”

The glimpses you can hear of the forthcoming album sound like a scrap book of all the best tales the band have delivered so far on their 5 previous albums, woven together with a new, contemporary finesse, having recorded for the first time with Kyle Spence at his studios in Athens, GA (Kurt Vile, Luke Roberts, Harvey Milk).

Click [here] for a more in depth interview on the new release.

So, Supersonic Festival goers, come and venture through the mystic landscapes of Arbouretum this June – we know you’re bound to get lost!

Preview full track ‘Fall From an Eyrie’ off their forthcoming album, ‘Song of the Rose’

TICKETS ON SALE NOW! 

On Friday night we hosted our first Supersonic Take-over Show on Brum Radio.

Over 2 hours we delved in to the first 10 acts to be announced for this year’s festival. Listening to tunes from the artists, their influences and interesting sound bites & interviews.

This is SURE to get you in the mood for our festival this June!

Big thanks to Brum Radio for hosting: www.brumradio.com

REMEMBER, tickets on sale NOW!

AND we have a special group ticket deal on with 5 weekend tickets for the price of 4 – so round up the troops!

Capsule have been busy behind the scenes, and are happy to announce the return of Supersonic Festival in 2017.
There’s much more information to follow in the coming weeks, in the meantime, we’re pleased to announce an official launch party on 4th and 5th November in the intimate surroundings of the Centrala Gallery space in Birmingham to celebrate the return of the festival.

The launch, much like the festival, features a variety of exciting talent which Supersonic would like to shine the limelight on, including local musicians and artists from across the globe. This event is the first of manu collaborations with Milque & Muhle, be warned capacity is super limited and advanced tickets are advised.

Details as follows:-
SUPERSONIC 2017 LAUNCH PARTY
FRIDAY NOV 4TH LINEUP:
Xylouris White (Jim White from Dirty Three + George Xylouris, Cretan lute player)
Sex Swing
Mothwasp

SATURDAY NOV 5TH LINEUP:
Giant Swan
Rattle
Kuro
Bismuth
Rainbow Grave
Stinky Wizzleteat
+ Sausage DJ’s
Milque & Muhle pop up record stall

Centrala
Unit 4 Minerva Works, 158 Fazeley Street, B5 5RT Birmingham

Tickets – https://www.theticketsellers.co.uk/tickets/supersonic-mini-weekender/10042028

Supersonic Festival and Milque & Muhle partner to bring you an explosive Xmas cocktail of aural delights and high-spirited performances across 2 rooms on Sat 13 Dec at the Hare & Hounds in Birmingham

with

Palehorse
Bludgeoning sludge rock from South London , now signed to Candlelight. expect heavy grooves, pounding drums and dual vocals.

Sly and the Family Drone
A primal orchestra of drum rhythms, radiophonic oscillator noise and electronically-abstracted vocals.

Lowest Form
Swirly nasty hardcore from one of britain’s finest ensembles, full length now out on iron lung records.

Ravioli Me Away
Ravioli Me Away are a dangerously ambitious and delusional all girl jazzy post punk, hip funk outfit from london.

Paddy Steer
Sounds like a Swiss cuckoo clock made of egg boxes and horsehair, glued together by an African Moog player in a Vietnamese iron monger’s shop.

Table Scraps
Local Garage Rock. Duo with guitar and stand up drumming with male/female vocals.

Rainbow Grave
Debut show formed from the ashes of Backwards (R.I.P) :’( – think Hate Sludge akin to  Stickmen with Rayguns/ Kilslug.

Advanced tickets from theticketsellers.co.uk and directly from Milque & Muhle at the Custard Factory.

We know you love this bit! Send us your suggestions for next year’s Supersonic. We always like to hear your wishlist, and don’t be afraid of being bold and brazen, heck one year we had Goblin AND Corrupted AND Thorr’s Hammer perform.
Here’s a little taster of our 2014 edition

“Birmingham’s Supersonic Festival occupies an exalted position at the vanguard of the festival circuit. And rightly so. Since its inception over ten years ago, it has maintained a staggeringly focused and intelligent curatorial policy, transcending the music and art worlds to present a programme teeming with invention, audience participation and a certain amount of unpredictability. It’s also a bloody good knees up.”  The Skinny

Supersonic Tea Towel

Supersonic Market Place
A space for independent distributors, record labels and peddlers of curiosities to sell their wares, network and for you to meet face to face.  The Market Place is also where the bands sell their merchandise. This area is equipped with a tearoom serving a selection of epicurean delights.

Stalls include:
Cold Spring The UK’s premier label, mailorder and distributor for Industrial and related music: Esoteric, Dark Ambient, Power Electronics, Noise, Ritual, Japanoise, Soundtrack, Neofolk, Doom and experimental music.

Edgeworld Formerly the Go-To choice for Alternative Vinyl in Brighton, now operating on a Pop-Up basis at select South Coast haunts and a Supersonic regular.

Melophobe Records Buyer and seller of good quality vinyl records specializing in Indie, Post Punk, Noise Rock, Metal and Free Jazz!  

Milque & Muhle Independent record shop specializing in new and second hand underground music, books and cassettes.

Lancashire and Somerset A humble record label, living in the hills of shropshire.

Food & Drink
Throughout the weekend brand new venue Alfie Birds will be serving gourmet pizzas and cocktails. In addition:

Friday
Just a 3 minute walk from the festival, we recommend Digbeth Dining Club.  Offering up some of the best, freshest and tastiest street food you can find in the city. Located at: SPOT*LIGHT, UNIT 2 (OPP. AIR NIGHTCLUB), LOWER TRINITY STREET, DIGBETH, B9 4AG

Saturday
We’ll have two street food stalls for you to chose from. The Mexican Bean – Mexican fast food, Healthy and delicious. Canoodle – Pan Asian Food.

Supersonic Bar
We’re delighted to be serving Purity Ales and Addlestons Cider as well as Plantation Rum – remember folks the Supersonic bar helps to subsidise the festival so do your bit.

For those of you arriving slightly earlier on Friday evening and fancy some gourmet street food we’d like to recommend visiting the Digbeth Dining Club which is just round the corner from Supersonic Festival and an excellent way to start your weekend.
On offer will be – Manila Munchies (Filipino), Big Daddies Diner (Gourmet Hot Dogs), Mexican Bean, Jabberwocky (Gourmet Toasties) and platinum Pancakes.
They’re based at Spotlight, Unit 2 Lower Trinity Street in Digbeth B9 4AG
and will be open from 5.30 – 10.30pm so plenty of time to grab yourself a gorgeous snack before the festival kicks off at 9pm

A huge thanks to the very talented Basic House who has created this awesome mix inspired by past and present Supersonic line up’s for Thump. See Basic House perform on Friday 30 May at the festival. There are still a handful of tickets left via theticketsellers

Tracklisting:

Kaila Whyte plays guitar and sings. Adam Haitof plays bass guitar. Marcus Perks plays drums. Collectively, Youth Man storm through a venue like a bull in a china shop, levelling everything in sight. Youth Man are all about unbridled X-Ray Spex-tinged passion and the high velocity punk energy of legendary Welsh trio Mclusky mixed with an artistic edge that leans towards The Dead Kennedys’ trippier moments – throwing caution to the wind and smashing your guitar into a thousand sweat-soaked pieces.

Following the initial announcement about Supersonic Ltd Edt 2014 where tickets sold out in a weekend we are delighted to be able to  make available another 200 tickets due to the opening of a brand new venue, Alfie Birds at the Custard Factory, we just couldn’t resist partnering with this new space and adding a second stage. BUY TICKETS

Adding to an already impressive line up (including Swans, Wolf Eyes, Matmos, Sleaford Mods and many more) are an array of weird and wonderful performers, and what band fits both categories “weird” and “wonderful” more aptly than Evil Blizzard, who shall bring their critically acclaimed, uniquely bizarre noise rock to the event. Meanwhile, Pharmakon’s confrontational power electronics and deathly industrial sounds will reverberate loudly around the Custard Factory, impossible to ignore. For something different, veteran performer/film composer and member of rock bands Codeine and Come, Chris Brokaw shall perform solo in support of his latest album.

Excitingly, Khünnt (featuring Richard Dawson and Pigs x 7) shall perform at Supersonic Ltd Edt 2014, exploring the boundaries of esoteric music, from minimalist noise and ESP screams to live improvisation, fog-beat and psychedelic city mantra. From these savage sounds we traverse to the futurist pop, electroacoustic and chamber orchestra music of Felix Kubin. And on another part of the musical spectrum, Sly & The Family Drone‘s egalitarian approach will propel the audience and band together into a shamanistic setting of catharsis and anarchic celebration.

What Supersonic event is complete without something heavy? Enter Opium Lord, who’s desolate doom-sludge, filthy grooves and abrasive noise will satisfy those with a penchant for dark sounds. Also ticking the boxes for loud, visceral, imposing and intelligent music are Bristol based ANTA who have also been added to the line up.

To mark the release of their first record, a 10″ EP, on London -New York label care in the community recordings, Alien Whale have been added to Supersonic Ltd Edn, musically exploring their roots in free-form rock ‘n roll with an ecstatic energy.  Also taking to the stage at Supersonic Ltd Edn 2014 are Rattle, two of Nottingham’s most unique and recognisable drummers (Theresa Wrigley of Fists and Katharine Brown of Kogumaza) and aided by Kogumaza’s Mark Spivey shall perform their hypnotic and dance-floor filling music, that recalls This Heat or ESG.

And finally, Capsule add two exciting local bands to the Supersonic Ltd Edn bill which includes, Birmingham based, Youth Man who shall present their hyperactive, non-stop form of post-punk which sounds like the Pixies playing Minutemen covers, heavily influenced by the Dead Kennedys. Also added are Backwards, featuring ex-members of Beestung Lips, Una Corda and Napalm Death – who serve up a heady brew of distortion with two bass guitars, drums, voice and electronics.

Of course as well as adding more performers we also have a number extra curricular happenings across the weekend at the Custard Factory and other locations also. Don’t forget to check out the Bill Drummond exhibition at Eastside Projects, he shall be leading a re-enactment of two historical performances given by The17 choir. The first was in Moscow on the 28 September 2006, the second in Saint Petersburg the following day. The re-enactment will involve 34 people, 17 of whom will act the part of those that were The17 in Moscow, the other 17 will act the part of those who were The17 in Saint Petersburg.   The17 choir creates music that follows no musical history, or necessarily has words, melodies or rhythms. This is a ticketed event taking place at Eastside Projects on Saturday at 2pm.

Still to come in the near future…more information about Capsule’s inaugural ‘Labs’ (artist development and commissioning scheme) devised to create more opportunities for commissioning experimental, cross-disciplinary art, which Capsule intend to launch at Supersonic Ltd Edn.
BUY TICKETS

Supersonic are delighted to be partnering with Death Waltz Recording Company and The Duke Mitchell Film Club for One Night Only, the two kings clash – on one side the king of obscure oddities from London  on the other – the king of rare sounds from all across the globe – a boutique label specializing in obscure, rare-to-find and brilliant soundtracks.

The result can only be brilliant chaos.

For a special, one-off Supersonic event the minds behinds these two labels are putting their heads to create a one-of a kind evening stuffed with wall-to-wall madness – taking over the cinema at supersonic on 31^st May 2014, they will be presenting a programme of cinematic and audio-visual madness the like of which is never to be seen before or after.

There will be VHS tapes, an ever-decreasing quality of carbon copy films,  their respective inspirations, the worst music videos in mind, weird shorts and more than a fair share of crap horror music as well as rare and secret clips, videos, shorts and more. Nothing will be sacred, nothing will be off-limits – this will not be your usual film slot, that’s for sure.

Richard Windley’s Stroh guitar; Run What Ya Brung – If Wet #4. Photo: Pete Ashton

If Wet at Supersonic will be extending their usual Run What Ya Brung feature. In collaboration with Stryx, they will select people to show and tell by providing a platform for short, informal presentations of your sonic delights; The theme of the day is ‘Extraordinary Objects‘ you can bring anything along from a Stroh guitar you might’ve made yourself [pictured] to a dolls head theramin…

Call out: Due to anticipated demand we are running this as a call out, so if you fancy showing something for a few minutes in an informal setting then please pop us an email to discuss what you might present and we will be in touch  hello[at]ifwet.org.uk. Four artists will be selected by If Wet/MortonUnderwood to show work alongside artists selected by Stryx.

supported by Birmingham City University

This year Supersonic will welcome Matmos (M.C. Schmidt and Drew Daniel) to the fold. This American duo have been manipulating raw materials into surprisingly accessible forms, often supplemented by traditional musical instruments played by them and their large circle of friends and collaborators (Bjork, Robert Wilson, Marina Abramovic etc.). The result is a model of electronic composition as a relational network that connects sources and outcomes together; information about the process of creation activates the listening experience, providing the listener with entry points into sometimes densely allusive, baroque recordings. Their most recent album, The Marriage of True Minds, was released in 2013 by Thrill Jockey Records.

15questions.net recently sat the pair down for a Q&A. We’ve picked out a couple of questions for you below but the interview can be read in full here and it’s well worth doing just that.

When did you start writing/producing music – and what or who were your early passions and influences?

My starting point wasn’t music but sound- I started making cut-ups with tape recorders when I was fifteen, editing funny little skit-like things out of records and the radio with a pause button. I did it because I had read about William S. Burroughs’ experiments with tape recorders and cut-ups and wanted to try that out myself. So I acquired a lot of cheap little plastic tape recorders and began to make pause-button edits, and then started doing primitive multi-tracking of noises and voices by having four tapes play in a room and recording them all to a fifth tape deck. I loved, in order, disco, heavy metal, hip hop, new wave, punk and hardcore and then industrial and noise. That’s the cycle from age 11 to age 16.

What do you personally consider to be the incisive moments in your artistic work and/or career?

The most literally incisive moments were the recordings of cosmetic surgery that generated our album A Chance to Cut Is A Chance to Cure: rhinoplasty, chin implants, liposuction.

I think meeting Martin was the catalyst for it all. We made a tape called Matmos in Lo Fidelity that was entirely in 8 bit. It was just an exercise in cutting and editing sound intensively, with lots of hyper juxtapositions and ridiculous noises – that was so fun to make, and was the beginning our romantic and musical partnership.

There seem to be two fundamental tendencies in music today: On the one hand, a move towards complete virtualisation, where tracks and albums are merely released as digital files. And, on the other, an even closer union between music, artwork, packaging and physical presentation. Where do you stand between these poles?

We are old fashioned and we like artefacts. I have watched enough turnover of formats in the digital domain to be pretty sceptical about the longevity of digital environments and digital storage. Remember floppy disks? 3.5 diskettes? Memory sticks? Zip drives? SCSI ports? I do. Implicitly, I am collector scum and I still have big boxes of noise cassettes from the 1980s that I love, and tons of vinyl at our house, and old photocopied zines. I think digital is great and has lots of advantages and obviously it’s the dominant media/medium/pathway at the moment. But I don’t see people twenty years from now caressing their old mp3s, while I am still listening to my Misfits record that I bought in high school.

MCS says:  Decidedly toward the latter- that’s why we’ve released the Ganzfeld EP in a limited edition with headphones, eye goggles and extensive liner notes about the project. We want people to be involved in a tactile way and to be informed, through language and image, about what they are hearing. That makes us old fashioned- we’re attached to the metaphor of “the album” as in the “photo album”- something to touch and leaf through and pore over in order to feel a connection.

Usually, it is considered that it is the job of the artist to win over an audience. But listening is also an active, rather than just a passive process. How do you see the role of the listener in the musical communication process?

We work to solicit interpretive desire, so that the listener feels a need to understand and learn about what she is hearing. We want to activate listening by foregrounding both jarring encounters with real sound, sourced in everyday life, with everyday objects and heavily artificial / constructed / untrustworthy moments. We hope that the tension between these components will make people worry about what it is that they are hearing and that it will generate a kind of audio-puzzle for them. That’s our hope. But of course you can’t actually determine how and in what way people encounter your work, and that open-endedness is just part of the process.

For more information on Matmos visit vague-terrain.com

We’ve partnered with The Paragon Hotel to offer our audiences discounted rates for Supersonic Festival 2014. The Paragon is conveniently location only a 5 minute walk away from the festival site and so is perfect if you want to enjoy the festival without trekking across the city. It is also only a 10-15 minute walk from the city centre, so you can have the best of both worlds should you want to explore the city in your free time.

Paragon Hotel 
145 Alcester Street, Birmingham, B12 0PJ
0121 627 0627

Discounted rates shown below, please quote SUPE300514 when booking.

Single room:

£42 Room only

£47 Room + breakfast

Twin/Double room:

£47 Room only

£55 Room + breakfast

It’s that time again to get curious, to get adventurous and to get ready. After taking a year out to re-imagine the festival following our tenth anniversary, Supersonic Festival is now back and going old skool in special two-day “Limited Edition” format this May 30th-31st. Tickets HERE.

The line-up so far includes post-punk legends SWANS, avant garde rockers WOLF EYES, multi-instrumentalist ensemble EX EASTER ISLAND HEAD, straight-talkers SLEAFORD MODS, sonic explorer BASIC HOUSE, Baltimore duo MATMOS, electro-violinist AGATHE MAX, Norwegian songwriter JENNY HVAL and more…. For a taste of what’s to come have a listen to our Supersonic 2014 playlist featuring these artists:

Supersonic Festival’s playground for 2014 will be the iconic Custard Factory, home of Capsule HQ. This ever-evolving industrial arts complex will shapeshift once again this May to play host to Supersonic’s enticing programme of experimental music, film and art. But this is Supersonic “Limited Edition” don’t forget, so expect a few extra special treats… and remember tickets are limited to 400 so do not miss out. Keep your eyes peeled for further line-up announcements over the next few weeks.
Tickets are available from HERE.

Back by popular demand and after a successful 10 years of existence, Supersonic Festival return and are taking the event back to its core values by curating ‘Supersonic Festival Ltd Edtn’ an intimate two day event. On 30th and 31st May, Capsule present Supersonic Festival Ltd Edtn and shall return to the Custard Factory where it all began.

Since the inception of Supersonic Festival in 2003, Capsule have firmly established the event as a unique,  inner-city festival, with an undeniably vibrant atmosphere, always presenting a variety of performers – the inaugural event featured the bewildering blend of Coil, DJ Food, LCD soundsystem, The Bug and more – and where the film programme, workshops and exhibitions are as paramount to the event’s atmosphere as the live performances. Year in, year out, Capsule unite discerning music fans, embracing eclectic tastes and have over the years adapted a creative space for music lovers, musicians, artists, filmmakers, record stalls and independent businesses to thrive.

As this is a limited event, there are only 400 weekend tickets available at just £45 and they will be going on sale on Friday morning at 10am, so grab them while you can via the www.theticketsellers.co.uk

Swans/ Matmos/Wolf Eyes/Ex Easter Island Head/Sleaford Mods/Agathe Max/Basic House/Jenny Hval more tba

Supersonic have already confirmed the billing for the event, which will take place at a new space within the Custard Factory, and are delighted to welcome back Swans. Michael Gira, Norman Westberg, Christoph Hahn, Phil Puleo, Thor Harris and Christopher Pravdica are no strangers to Supersonic Festival, and are thrilled to play host to their infamous, dominant and strikingly powerful live show.

Baltimore duo Matmos shall bring their dizzyingly diverse assemblage to Supersonic Limited in support of their 2013 album. Their music comprises stomping techno, eerie synth jams, musique concrete, Latin rhythms, and Ethiopian music, at once at home in the academy, the art gallery, the nightclub and the noise warehouse, perfect fit for the festival then.

Liverpool based ensemble, Ex Easter Island Head, will bring their expanded Large Electric Ensemble which includes twelve prepared electric guitars and drums to create a maximalist wash of amplified strings and droning overtones. The ensemble adopt a new vocabulary of playing based around various guitar preparations, from billowing harp-like arpeggios to ‘bowing’ the strings with allen keys to produce luminous upper register drones. Microtonal intervals create shimmering tones akin to the struck metallophones of Balinese gamelan, whilst the thrum of electrified strings creates a dense undertow of singing harmonies. Scored in custom notation the piece places free flowing passages alongside conductor cues, allowing the players to collectively create a distinctive sonic landscape. What Supersonic event would be complete without something special such as this?

Supersonic are pleased to welcome back, the infamous blistering noise of Wolf Eyes.  From touring with Sonic Youth and Andrew W.K., Wolf Eyes have crossed borders into popularity which few other such confrontational units of their ilk have been able to and kept straight and narrow on their blazing path, and are on top form. The overwhelming force of Wolf Eyes must be seen to to be believed.

Sleaford Mods will bring their aggressive verbal onslaught to the Custard Factory, a great setting to spout about all that is contrived and connected to the day-to-day hammer of low paid employment and domestic situations arising from that trap.

Also returning to the festival, is French artist Agathe Max. With an elegant command of melody and a strident use of rhythm, Max creates dynamic, fast-flowing loop pieces that encompass noise, post-classicism and krautrock with nods to the High Lonesome Raga as filtered through Henry Flynt.

We warmly welcome a rising talent to this rich mix in the form of Basic House, the work of the UK’s Stephen Bishop, the man behind the ever more impressive label that is Opal Tapes and also vocalist of Drunk In Hell who played an unforgettable set at Supersonic in 2012. His textural and rhythmic explorations are fast growing in acclaim, described as “somewhere between Kassem Mosse, The New Blockaders and Zoviet*France.”

Finally, provocative Norwegian singer, composer, lyricist and writer Jenny Hval shall perform at Supersonic. Multidisciplinary and transgressive are words often employed to describe her art, but Jenny Hval’s polyphonic artistry is in fact seamlessly interwoven between musical, literary, visual and performative modes of expression. Despite her young age, she has already infused, carved and modulated an artistic voice that is altogether present, accessible and obscurely complex at the same time. We cannot wait!

Let’s not forget the other elements which always make Supersonic so special, the workshops and participatory events. Supersonic have selected If Wet to feature at the festival. If Wet is a monthly event of sonic exploration, usually held in a rural village hall; chaired by musical instrument designers MortonUnderwood. Part show and tell, part test bed, part salon. A place for artists to showcase their latest sonic works and research. A place to revel and discuss. After a successful inaugural season MortonUnderwood have decided to extend the reach of If Wet beyond the village hall and it is with great pleasure that they will transport their distinctive event to Supersonic 2014.

Supersonic Ltd Edtn will launch Capsule’s inaugural ‘Labs’ (artist development and commissioning scheme) devised to create more opportunities for commissioning experimental, cross-disciplinary art. More information about this will be coming soon.

Bill Drummond: The 25 Paintings
Legendary musician and artist Bill Drummond will begin a twelve year ‘World Tour’ under Spaghetti Junction marking this momentous event with an exhibition at Eastside Projects.
The exhibition focuses on ‘The 25 Paintings’, a series of artworks that signpost actions Drummond will perform across Birmingham during his three month stay in the city including, but by no means limited to, giving away bunches of daffodils, discovering Dead Oak Rings, building rafts, hiding in cafes, making beds, sweeping the streets clean and brewing tea. Also on show will be The SIXTY Posters, The 25 Sixty Second Films, an evolving selection of photographs, a globe of the world and a large map of the city.
www.eastsideprojects.org

Capsule are delighted to announce the return of MELT BANANA who will perform in Birmingham on May 27 at the Rainbow Warehouse. Tickets from HERE

From the whip-like crack of Yako’s signature staccato vocals and impossible-to-memorize lyrics to the relentless overdrive tempo of their one of-a-kind prog-core, MELT BANANA have long resided in a cybertopia of their own devising where the limits of technology and human capability are old-world concerns as quaint and cumbersome as bartering with a blacksmith. The demos for Fetch, their first studio album since the severely fried pop-punk of 1997′s Bambi’s Dilemma, were completed in March 2011, but the Fukushima earthquake changed everything, including their ability to concentrate on recording. Which stopped completely.

Once they felt ready to return to their music, they decided to approach th songs on a sound-by-sound basis, choosing each tone with meticulous attention to detail, affirming their personal connections, being themselves naturally and openly.

They’ve been performing live as a duo since summer 2012, and will do the same for their “2 do what 2 fetch” tour in support of the album. After nearly 20 years of playing with a live rhythm section, their use of a PC, while opening possibilities for a variety of drum and synth voicings, does not signal a move away from the traditional live band sound, as heard, for example, via the future transmissions from downtown Noiseapolis on 2009′s Lite Live: Ver. 0.0. Yako and Agata say they need to feel real band sounds onstage as much as someone in the audience. This is a group that routinely excels at several kinds of impossible simultaneously, so of course any new challenge they come up with for themselves is sure to blow the doors off your Mini Cooper.

Tickets from HERE

Melt Banana official

THRILLING HEADGEAR

Swelling from out of the cosmic putrescence of the Wizzleteat corpse, Thrilling Headgear force day-glo colours into angular shapes, holding groove as dogma. At turns both despondant and ethereal, TH play bleeted punk rock, transcendent and engaged, psychonautical engineering for earth-bound space mechanics.

GLATZE

Glatze is back! After a brief hiatus the one-man musical loon has been coaxed out to play by the prospect of supporting Melt Banana again, for old times’ sake. Glatze’s first gig for Capsule was this very same support slot, back in 2009. Expect the usual live improvised electronic mayhem, with just a hint more “mad professor” than “young buck”. He promises to do his very best in support of one of his favourite live acts…

With exactly one week to go until we open the doors to the 10th edition of Supersonic Festival, we partnered with the wonderful Network Awesome to put a selection of related films together from the last decade of Supersonic. It contains rare footage of Coil from our first ever festival as well as tracks by Broadcast, Nisenenemondai, Zu and a whole host of interviews. Enjoy!

Network Awesome is a new online TV site that curates the media film, documentaries, and video collections from all eras of broadcast history. It’s free, not full of junk, and it broadcasts 6 new shows each day. The archives are stand-alone repositories of media, available anytime and are, like, totally social so you can share it with your friends. Root around in there! You’ll be amazed at what you find.

If you haven’t bought tickets yet now is your chance, they can be purchased HERE