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FREE PARTY 

FREE PARTY

FREE PARTY

FREE PARTY

FREE PARTY

FREE PARTY

what’s that? A FREE PARTY? A PARTY? FOR FREE?

Yes you heard right.

Come on down to the SUPERSONIC SOCIAL at Centrala as part of Digbeth First Friday on June 2nd.

From 8 til late!

Bringing together Supersonic Artists, Volunteers and Punters past and present for a good ol’ Festival Frolic.
Warmly welcoming newcomers to our loving community of curious odd bods.
Come find out what Supersonic is all about ahead of this year’s festival: June 16th-18th TICKETS

Expect DJ sets from Mothwasp, Dorcha, Girls Girls Girls and Sausage!

Themed Cocktails & Snacks, Supersonic Visuals, plus a Superspecial Performance from Birmingham’s very own unique and rare species – GORILLABOT

Oh and it’s FREE!

LET US KNOW IF YOU’RE GETTING DOWN?

FREE PARTY

FREE PARTY

FREE PARTY

FREE PARTY

FREE PARTY

FREE PARTY

 

 

 

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With our Volunteer application deadline tomorrow [info here] we spoke to a couple of past Supersonic Volunteers to find out what they had to say about their festival experience…

 

GUSHI SOHAL

What compelled you to Volunteer with us in the first place?

I was interested in working with Supersonic because I like a lot of bands Capsule host. & Supersonic is a fun atmosphere.

Tell us about your Supersonic Volunteer experience:

My experience of Supersonic has always been enjoyable & fuelled by samosas.  I’ve met a lot of like minded people, get to see friends I don’t usually see on a regular basis & watch so many bands.

How have you used this experience outside the Festival?

Whilst working at the festival  I was able to network, so I have been able to use this experience to further my professional career.

Who are you excited about at Supersonic 2017?

The Space Lady! Dorcha, Xylorious White… Too many to chose from!

KRISTIAN CLARK

What compelled you to Volunteer with us in the first place?

I had visited the festival on two occasions and just loved the experience, the vibe was really friendly and the people were all great, as soon as i noticed the call for volunteers i knew i wanted to be a part of it.

Tell us about your Supersonic Volunteer experience:

My first year volunteering i felt nervous at first but once i met Sean and the rest of the Capsule team I was instantly put at ease. The team are so friendly and they care about everyone having a great weekend, wether you are a punter or a volunteer, they really looked after us all. It was also great that I got to meet a lot of the artists who performed at the festival, there was a real community spirit to it all, where the artist were genuinely grateful to us for giving our time to help run the festival. 

How have you used this experience outside the Festival?

I have gone on to work at other festivals/events around the UK since my first time volunteering at Supersonic. Including Tusk Festival in my home town and some dates on tour with Test Dept.

Who are you excited about at Supersonic 2017?

There’s so much to look forward to as ever…

Richard Dawson playing with a full band! (don’t miss it!)

Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs (also essential, don’t forget the buckfast)

Princess Nokia (super excited to see Princess Nokia, dat girl is a tomboy!)

Ex-Easter Island Head Large Ensemble (beautiful)

Casual Nun (just got into these, love em, can’t wait to see them live)

Grey Hairs (just class, big fan of this lot)

Laura Cannell (excited to see Laura Cannell again!)

ZONAL!? (Kevin Martin & Justin Broadrick collaborating again! should be Mega)

Supersonic always get it right,  I love that every time I visit I don’t know half of the line-up, but always go home with a new favourite band or 6! 

WANT TO VOLUNTEER AT SUPERSONIC 2017?

YOU HAVE UNTIL TOMORROW TO APPLY!

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…Supersonic Festival Soundcloud Mix No.2 now available for your listening pleasure.

Featuring:

Richard Dawson/Jessica Moss/Laura Cannell/Arbouretum/Big Joanie/Tomaga/Kuro/Casual Nun/Charles Hayward/Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs

So go! Open up those ear holes!

 

AND IF YOU HAVEN’T GOT YOUR TICKETS YET WHAT YOU PLAYING AT?!

 

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Dorcha is a 5 piece Birmingham band of synths, strings, electronics and heavy beats, led by composer – Anna Palmer. Drawing from an eclectic array of influences and musical backgrounds, Dorcha is a continuing exploration through alternative songwriting. From classical to punk, trashy pop to psychedelic math-rock with some swooping electronica thrown in between; the band career through intensely dark synth-laden gristle to moments of gentile and delicately-stringed reverie.

Since launching their first full-length album ‘Black Streams‘ in 2015, the band’s genre-defying sound has been praised by BBC 6 Music’s Stuart Maconie on his Freak Zone and they’ve shared line-ups with the likes of Deerhoof, East India Youth and Dream Wife.

Through curating their own multidisciplinary events with artistic collaborators, the band has produced an enigmatic live show accompanied by visuals which continues to excite and bewilder diverse audiences.

The band have recently released a new EP entitled ‘ism’ which adventures further into the depths of left-field electronica whilst still maintaining refined pop sensibilities. Recorded with local Digbeth based producer Luke Morrish Thomas at Flood Studios. 

Last week the band released a new interactive website, built by Phil Dawson and designed by Beth Bellis. You can explore it by clicking here!

In conjuncture with the new website release the band have launched a new collaborative experiment: ‘The Miniatures Project’. As the band explain:

“One day, Anna was wearing a different head and wrote some tiny guitar tunes that don’t really sound like any other Dorcha. We had a real laugh playing them but didn’t know where to place them, so we’ve put them in a house in our brand new website.

This is their home now. And we’re extending the family.

These tunes sparked a new idea to invite others to write for Dorcha. Different heads, same body. We’ve asked 9 other artists from varying musical backgrounds to create a set of miniatures for us to play and record in a day. Over the course of 2017 we’ll release a set of Mini’s a month – starting NOW with Anna’s Guitar miniatures. Get your chops round this!”

 

Welcome to the weird and ever changing landscape of Dorcha! Who knows what these local Brummies have in store for Supersonic 2017?

GET YOUR TICKETS FOR SUPERSONIC NOW!!!

 

Catch them at Flatpack Film Festival April 9th

Also appearing at Fat Out Fest on the Supersonic stage

 

www.dorcha.co.uk

www.facebook.com/dorchauk

twitter: @dorchamusic

 

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“Precise and pulsing rhythmic minimalism…a three chord punk mission statement turned into a neo-classical manifesto.” – THE WIRE

Ex-Easter Island Hear are a UK based musical collective, composing and performing music for solid-body electric guitar, percussion and other instruments.

Primarily performing as a trio, the group incorporate multiple prepared electric guitars struck with percussion mallets to create works that explore group interplay, repetition and melodic invention through purposefully limited means. 

Their records Mallet Guitars One –Three, Large Electric Ensemble and Twenty-Two Strings have been released to significant critical acclaim from the likes of The Wire, Pitchfork, the Quietus and the New York Times. The group’s live performances at the likes of ATP festival, the Edinburgh Fringe and throughout the UK, Europe and Japan have been praised by The Guardian, Independent, BBC and more for their hypnotic energy, compositional flair and unique spectacle.

Large Electric Ensemble is Ex-Easter Island Head’s first piece for massed electric instruments and drums.

Following on from ‘Mallet Guitars Three’ for four guitars and three performers, Large Electric Ensemble sees the group expand to include twelve prepared electric guitars and drums to create a maximalist wash of amplified strings and droning overtones.

Commissioned by the first annual World Event Young Artist festival (WEYA) held in Nottingham 2012, the piece was developed alongside an ensemble of local musicians from a variety of musical backgrounds. Debuted at the festival and developed over further months, the piece was recorded completely live and with no overdubs across two days in March 2013.

“Skilfully balanced between methodical precision and emotional resonance, the result is a listen that is dynamic, rich and fluid despite the modesty of its parts.” – THE QUIETUS

Following on from the critically acclaimed Mallet Guitars trilogy (2010-13) and Large Electric Ensemble (2014) and honed across high profile live appearances including the Stewart Lee curated ATP, Liverpool Psych Fest and the Edinburgh Fringe, ‘Twenty-Two Strings’ is the latest album from UK-based experimental trio Ex-Easter Island Head.

Utilising horizontally-laid electric guitars and bass, the group continue to develop their own distinctive musical language, eschewing digital processing and effects for a vocabulary of mechanical preparations and extended techniques, creating a sound drawing on minimalism, gamelan and process music.

‘Salford Large Electric Ensemble’

For Supersonic 2017, EEIH convene a gathering of their Large Electric Ensemble, comprising performers drawn from all corners of the thriving Manchester and Salford underground to present an ambitiously scaled work for sixteen prepared table-top electric guitars and percussion.

Utilising a self-developed language of extended techniques and mechanical preparations the piece sees the groups’ shimmering electrified minimalism expanded to a bold new scale, encompassing members of Gnod, ILL, Action Beat, Mother and tapping into the vast resources of talent at Salford’s Islington Mill and on the Manchester-based Tombed Visions label. 

It is imperative you DO NOT MISS this spectacle at Supersonic Festival 2017.

GET YOUR TICKETS NOW!

http://www.exeasterislandhead.com/

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Kuro feature the amplified talents of French violinist Agathe Max and bassist Gareth Turner, joined by Valentina Magaletti of Tomaga (drums) and Helen Papaioannou (baritone sax) for this Superspecial Supersonic performance.

Kuro take their name from the Japanese word for ‘black’, and their debut release for Rocket Recordings marks an experimental union between two diversely storied yet inherently like-minded musicians. Agathe Max, who hails from Lyon, is a classically-trained violinist with a varied back catalogue of studio and live work – running the gamut from spectral ambience to stately soundscapes and adept at summoning dream states and drama alike.

The Bristol-based Gareth Turner, meanwhile, maintains a busy schedule performing and recording with Rocket Recordings trio Anthroprophh (alongside The Heads guitarist Paul Allen) bass/drums duo Big Naturals, and his solo double-bass project Salope, as well as working as a touring tech for Melvins on their trips to Europe.

Yet despite both of these artists’ multi-faceted artistic lives, their partnership was both a natural progression and reflective of an intuitive chemistry. The result of their initial spark is perhaps both artists’ most coherent and captivating work to date.

The result is Kuro’s eponymous first outing, an elegantly sprawling and richly textured work of tumult and transcendence recorded by Joe Garcia (live sound wizard for OM and many others) in the duo’s home city. “An amazing sound engineer” enthuses Agathe of Garcia “He’s got a very good sense of space with sound. We used different sources of mics, with a room recording that would link all the others and give a warm and open touch.” 

A unique, richly atmospheric and largely improvisatory record that stands proud and defiant of pigeonholing, Kuro is neither elegant chamber music nor intense drone-noise, neither psychedelia nor spiritual jazz, yet with elements of all of the above- dwelling perhaps atop a psychic hinterland between the shamanic vortices of Ashtray Navigations, the wild extrapolations of Sun City Girls and the melancholic richness of The Dirty Three. Yet what comes across strongest of all is the original spark of the partnership, summoning altered states, meditative vibrations and internal narratives by the power of eight strings. 

“We wanted to create a journey for the listeners, to create an inner cinema with emotional landscapes, old time cults and stories of lost sailors” reckons Agathe. Indeed, though voyage appears to be only beginning, such is its momentum that any adventurous and self-respecting psychonaut would be well advised to hitch a ride. 

“At times her work approaches the supersonic escape velocity of Tony Conrad; elsewhere, she introduces delicate repeating threads, then  slowly weaves them into a fabric of vast, billowing sound more reminiscent of Steve Reich. With an elegant command of melody and a strident use of rhythm, Max manages to create a remarkably accessible collection of tracks, one that bridges the gaps between minimalism, post-classicism, the avant garde, krautrock, and plain old-fashioned pop.” – Bookcat review.

Don’t miss this Superspecial performance from KURO at Supersonic this year!

GET YOUR TICKETS NOW!