Supersonic Q&A no. 6: OREN AMBARCHI

Australian guitarist and sound designer Oren Ambarchi is performing at Supersonic 2011 in collaboration with the FIRE! trio of Mats Gustafsson from The Thing (saxophone/rhodes), Johan Berthling from Tape (bass) and Andreas Werliin from Wildbirds and Peacedrums (percussion).  Originally a drummer, he came to the guitar by accident, investigating its sound properties rather than learning traditional techniques.  A good entry point into his work is ‘Grapes From The Estate’ album (Touch, 2004), a masterful exploration of ambient guitar and electronics. More recently, he has collaborated with Stephen O’Malley and Attilar Csihar as Gravetemple.

1. Which five words describe what you know about Supersonic?
Lovely people and killer shows

2. What can people expect of your collaboration with FIRE! at the festival?
In all honesty I don’t know what to expect as the Supersonic show will be the first time we’ve worked together(!).
Additionally I’ll be flying all the way from Australia for 30+ hrs, landing at Heathrow, driving straight to Birmingham and hitting it immediately so…it should be awesome, hahaha. I must say that I’m a fan of all the guys in the band so I’m really excited to work with them.

3. Why make music – what does it do for you that nothing else does?
I often think about what drives us to do this stuff, this stuff that continually tortures & haunts us..(or me anyway as it can be a struggle at times). Mostly for me I think it’s the search for beauty/ecstasy. When I’m going for something & it doesn’t work, I can get super depressed for days. But when it ‘works’ there’s no other feeling that comes close and I’m always striving to get to this state again & again. I’m really addicted to it.

4. Who else on the bill are you hoping to see?  (And why?)
Well, definitely Tony Conrad. I’ve seen him a number of times but I can’t get enough of his work, especially in a live context. He’s super important to me. Also totally psyched to see Cut Hands. I’m a huge Whitehouse/Bennett fan, I love the way he’s fused this ecstatic trance inducing voodou vibe with noise.  There’s plenty of other friends playing at the fest who I’m looking forward to hanging with & listening to, there’s definitely a great breadth to all the lineups at Supersonic.

5. Finally, your essential ‘surviving-Supersonic’ items are…
Melatonin, ear-plugs, finding a decent restaurant (ahem) and a good single-malt.

http://www.orenambarchi.com

Supersonic Q&A no. 5: TEETH OF THE SEA

From London, Teeth of the Sea play a wild, mixed-up strain of what sounds like semi-improvised jams.  Structures are amorphous, reference points are redundant as they switch modes from song-to-song – noise-rock, electronics and dubbed-out trumpet all get a look-in.  As DROWNED IN SOUND said in their review of current album ‘Your Mercury’ (Rocket Recordings, 2010), the band create “a steamy, light-starved jungle of tangled electronics and feral distortion occasionally punctuated by startlingly lucid bottom end.  For the most part Teeth of the Sea’s second record defies any worries about genre categorisation, a hermetically sealed unit with such a strong sense of self that comparisons to other music seem perverse.”

1. Which five words describe what you know about Supersonic?
Jimmy: An embarrassment of sonic riches.
Mat: Great method of karma scouring.
Mike: It goes up to 11.

2. What can people expect of Teeth of the Sea at the festival?
Mat: Manifold contact highs. Seeing us should lead to elevation. Being down wind of us should lead to inebriation.
Mike: Hair raising, teeth grinding, ear bleeding, knob twiddling, move busting, figure hugging, fist pumping, face melting, load blowing, psyche fucking rock.
Jimmy: It’ll be a bit like that climactic scene in Raiders Of The Lost Ark, only with four skinny blokes instead of the seraphim, a total absence of the Third Reich, and the added bonus of just about being able to survive to tell the tale afterwards.

3. Why make music – what does it do for you that nothing else does?
Mike: We’d have to hand over to philosopher, poet, composer and classical philologist Friedrich Nietzsche here, with his celebrated quote “Without music, life would be a mistake. Besides which, whenever I hear the sound of a needle hitting wax I get as hard as a diamond in an ice storm.” I think he speaks for us all.
Mat: Seriously, it’s the art form that allows for the greatest breadth of thinking and technique. Approach it from any angle and you can still make it dance. Which is what Supersonic is all about, right?
Jimmy: Music. Makes The People. Come Together.

4. Who else on the bill are you hoping to see?  (And why?)
Mike: The fact we’re on the same bill as Zombi is making us collectively weep tears of joy and blood. Also looking forward to Alva Noto + Byetone quite possibly ripping a hole in the fabric of space and time above the Custard Factory.
Jimmy: I’m pretty excited about withstanding Astro’s cosmic assault, but there’s literally nobody on the bill I wouldn’t pay to go and see at their own show. Plus Electric Wizard as headliners are going to be one unholy rite.
Mat: I’m already upset that I won’t be able to see everything, but I’m really excited about seeing Circle again. Mainly because the rest of TOTS have never seen them and I want to be there when THE GREATEST LIVE BAND IN THE WORLD tear them all fresh ones.

5. Finally, your essential ‘surviving-Supersonic’ items are…
Mike: all essential. Trust me.
Jimmy: We’re still trying to secure lucrative sponsorship deals with Ginster’s Pasties and Anadin Extra, so I should probably say those. The only problem with Supersonic in my experience is that I end up so thrilled by the whole shebang that I’m a mess by about 10PM, but far be it from me to suggest something as vulgar as pacing yourself.
Mat: The Bat Belt will be equipped with nerve agents, tranquilizers, military issue med kit, Tescos coupons, guitar picks and holy water. As standard.

http://www.myspace.com/thewrongjaws

Supersonic Q&A no. 4: ZOMBI

Using all-analogue vintage synths and sequencers, coupled with live drums and bass, Zombi’s sound is far more expansive than you’d imagine a duo could ever be.  Taking inspiration from progressive rock and soundtracks, their music appeals to both fans of Genesis and Pink Floyd as well as touring partners like Dillinger Escape Plan and Red Sparowes.  Steve Moore, bass & synths, is the man answering our questions.

1. Which five words describe what you know about Supersonic?
Eclectic, hospitable, punctual, loud, fun.

2. What can people expect of Zombi at the festival?
Golden oldies.

3. Why make music – what does it do for you that nothing else does?
I ask myself the same thing every day, I have no idea why I still do this.

4. Who else on the bill are you hoping to see?  (And why?)
Tony Conrad!  I’ve never seen him perform live.  Also Secret Chiefs 3 and maybe Wolves in the Throne Room, haven’t seen either of them in a while.

5. Finally, your essential ‘surviving-Supersonic’ items are…
Korg Polysix, Sequential Circuits Prophet 600, Dave Smith Tetra, Fender Jazz Bass.

http://www.zombi.us/

New Spotify playlist

We announced more fantastic bands for Supersonic 2011 a fortnight ago, including Cut Hands, Berg Sans Nipple, Part Chimp, Alexander Tucker and Alva Noto/Byetone.  For your listening pleasure, here is a new Spotify playlist featuring all the artists.  Enjoy!

http://open.spotify.com/user/littleredrabbit/playlist/1G2nW0tTKUmIoANAR4t14a

Alva Noto is a stage name of sound artist Carsten Nicolai who uses art and music as complementary tools to create microscopic views of creative processes. He is a member of the music groups Signal (with Frank Bretschneider, AKA Komet and Olaf Bender, AKA Byetone) and Cyclo. (with Ryoji Ikeda).

Nicolai transforms sound by looping oscillators and tone generators. He does not use sequencers, but edits his work to give his compositions rhythmic structures. Clicks and glitches are not used as ornamental additions to the compositions but make up the essential rhythmic and harmonic elements of the work.

“Nicolai, along with sometime collaborator Ryoji Ikeda, is in the vanguard of artists whose work represents a genuinely experimental fusion of visual and sound art.” The Wire

http://www.alvanoto.com

Olaf Benders, manager of Raster-Noto record label, performs solo under the name Byetone.

Bender creates his music digitally. He assembles sine tones to complex sound fabrics. digital clicks and effect plug-ins are essential to create the rhythms. All this is brought in a timely relation and so a track is born — an artificial world without any physical effort.

Bender uses visuals in the sense of animated light. Abstract animations support the abstract pieces of music — in this way the rhythm of music is transformed into a graphic equivalent. Bender controls the animations in realtime. In connection with sound effect processing this enables him to interact live on stage.

http://www.myspace.com/benderbyetone

Hello folks. My name’s David and I’m the Marketing intern for Supersonic 2011. I’m based in Manchester so I have the dubious pleasure of getting to know the M6 in intimate detail over the next few months. One of my first jobs has been to put together a Spotify playlist for artists performing at this year’s festival. It’s been great to check out some fantastic acts – hope you enjoy listening. Personally I’m excited about Skull Defekts (their current record ‘Peer Amid’ with Daniel Higgs is superb), Wolves in the Throne Room, Nathan Bell and Bardo Pond. Cloaks are my newest discovery too. Liking them a lot.

Listen here:
http://open.spotify.com/user/littleredrabbit/playlist/1G2nW0tTKUmIoANAR4t14a

Silver Apples appeared on the New York scene in 1967. Far from the Dead/Airplane-influenced West Coast hippies, their psychedelic music came with a dark-repetitive-New-York-scary flavour that did not sound like the rest of the Summer of Love.

Decades after their brief yet influential career first ground to a sudden and mysterious halt, the Silver Apples remain one of pop music’s true enigmas: a surreal, almost unprecedented duo, their music explored interstellar drones and hums, pulsing rhythms and electronically-generated melodies years before similar ideas were adopted in the work of acolytes ranging from Suicide to Spacemen 3 to Laika.

The band is now touring as a solo act, SIMEON, aka “The Oscillation Man”, who sings and plays his famous hand-made instrument, ‘The Simeon”, made of “nine audio oscillators piled on top of each other and eighty-six manual controls to control lead, rhythm and bass pulses with hands, feet and elbows”…

http://www.silverapples.com/

Producing work that is epic in concept, sound, and artistic approach, Steve Moore and A.E. Paterra, the masterminds and multi-instrumentalists behind Zombi, have re-imagined the architecture of progressive rock and dynamic instrumentals -carving a niche in underground music distinctly their own.

http://www.myspace.com/zombi

Lucky Dragons are about the birthing of new and temporary creatures–equal-power situations in which audience members cooperate amongst themselves, building up fragile networks held together by such light things as skin contact, unfamiliar language, temporary logic, the spirit of celebration, and things that work but you don’t know why. There have been hundreds of these simple yet shifting and unpredictable instances–with audiences ranging from the intense intimacy of one person to the public spectacle of thousands of people. At the heart of it all is playing together–building up social collectivities, re-engaging the wonder and impossibility of technological presence. It sounds–and looks–like simple and ancient patterns coming together and falling apart in a sincere attempt to let wires and screens and words become clear and crystal.

http://www.hawksandsparrows.org/

a.P.A.t.T. sound like the best bits of everything you’ve ever heard. File next to ABBA / Zappa skipping through all the genres on the way. Completely original bewildering 2-7 piece band using all the genres possible to create a daft yet beautiful mess. Running all over stage whilst swapping instruments. Eclectic doesn’t cover it.

http://www.apatt.com/

Agathe Max is a French musician based in Lyon. She mostly performs as a solo violin act, enhanced with various loops, distortions and other effects. She has been very much on tour in the last few years sharing gigs with important international acts such as Carla Bozulich, Jonathan Kane, Rhys Chattam, David Daniell and Melt Banana. Her music is either composed or improvised, depending of the shape of the project. In addition to her musical career, Agathe Max is also a visual artist, a jeweller and an activist in the musical and artistic community in Lyon.
http://www.myspace.com/agathemax

Their music traverses an encyclopaedia of influences; psych, folk, no wave noise and electronic perhaps being some of the more predominant. They utilise banjo, two basses, two guitars, synths, samplers and more effects and loop pedals than it’s reasonable for one band to need.
http://healthandefficiency.net

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http://www.myspace.com/chromehoof

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Friday nights at Supersonic wouldn’t be the same without PCM. Currently celebrating their 20th anniversary, this duo have been at the heart of the Birmingham electronic/dance music scene for many years but have managed to keep their music and ethos resolutely underground and “in yer face”.
Sharing bills with acts as diverse as Aphex Twin, Test Dept, Scorn, Luke Vibert and even Hawkwind (!), PCM draw from their wide-ranging influences from metal to Krautrock, 60’s psychedelia to old skool hardcore to create a whirlwind of sound that ignites any dancefloor turning it into a steaming mosh-pit.
Previous Supersonic appearances have seen exclusive collaborations with legendary metal vocalist Karl Willetts from Bolt Thrower and guitarist Steve Pike amongst others; all adding to their unique take on Drum & Bass/electronica for the 21st century.
By combining nitrous-fuelled beats and filthy subsonic basslines with alien soundscapes and horror movie unease, PCM continue Birmingham’s heritage of producing dark, heavy music but with their eyes firmly on the dancefloor.

http://www.myspace.com/p_c_m

The roots of King Midas Sound were planted when Kevin Martin, industrial dance veteran and the brain behind experimental dancehall project The Bug, set about collecting together vocalists for his 2008 album, London Zoo. Where The Bug had a hard carapace, firmed up with industrial beats and dubstep bass, King Midas Sound more resembles a phantom presence: a ghostly fog of sound that seeps through air vents and creeps through cracks in window panes. Heavy with urban dread but awake to the promise of a better life.

http://www.myspace.com/kingmidassound

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Heavy heavy dub featuring DJ Scotch Egg and Dokkebi Q. Scotch Egg plays live bass with the same manic attitude as his gameboy alongside the gruesome beats of fellow Japanese artist Dokkebi Q.

http://www.myspace.com/devilmanattack[jwplayer mediaid=”1050″]

[jwplayer config=”audio sidebar” playlistid=”1142″]Cloaks are considered to be one of the more abstract and uncompromising production teams to have emerged from the spannered and industrial-edged UK dubstep scene. Their distorted and often claustrophobic sound, created using found sound and circuit bent instruments was first debuted on the London based Werk Discs, with their output drawing comparison to not only modern bass music but to the darker sounds of noise and industrial.

This solo DJ set by SteveCloaks will see the 3by3 label boss in a Dub-selector style, playing strictly Cloaks material only, in an exclusive performance for Supersonic 2010.
http://www.myspace.com/cloaks

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Everyone is raving about this London based band, you’ll find their brutal live performance stretches from dark, post-punk electronics to astute, industrial-strength minimal techno. willfully despondent female vocal and a slavering, primitive arpeggiator, gelling the two together with an eruptive frenzy of drums. It’s an interesting take on disaffected, cold-wave minimalism – something that seems to be in the air at the moment.
http://www.myspace.com/factoryfloor

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Enter the tiny musical world of Pierre Bastien and Małe Instrumenty. French composer and surrealist inventor Pierre Bastien has been building musical machinery since the 1970s and has worked with artists as diverse as Robert Wyatt and Issey Miyake.  His delicate, minimal music created from meccano and pocket trumpet has delighted audiences worldwide. Sharing the bill is Małe Instrumenty, a fantastic five piece orchestra of toys and small instruments from Wrocław, Poland.

http://www.pierrebastien.com/

http://smallinstruments.com/

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

www.peoplelikeus.org

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

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

www.myspace.com/doshanticon
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