As a pre-Supersonic warm up, we’re delighted to be partnering with Ideal to host long time friend and supporter of all things Capsule, John Doran the editor of The Quietus. Doran is celebrating the publication of his first book – Jolly Lad – by going on a 31 date reading tour called An English Trip. He is teaming up with other writers, poets, film makers, musicians and DJs over the course of a month and putting on nights in prisons, churches, libraries, record shops, book stores, village halls, warehouses and cinemas and his musical support on every night of the tour is Kjetil Nernes aka Arabrot, the Norwegian noise rock musician.

The night they have planned at Birmingham’s Eastside Projects is a real cracker. Anglo Trinidadian wordsmith Roger Robinson (King Midas Sound, Techno Animal, Attica Blues) is performing dub poetry from his new album Dis Side Ah Town (Jahtari Records). Twisted Leeds party starters Chrononautz are bringing the live techno vibes. John Doran is reading passages from Jolly Lad and also performing various incantations and rituals concerning black holes, the dismemberment of Dapper Laughs, ghosts and Birmingham bus timetables while backed ably by Kjetil Nernes from Arabrot.

Tickets for the event are available here
(Be warned that the venue has only got a limited capacity)

After completing his tour of the U.S., Mexico, Canada and Italy, Frost will be joined by Greg Fox (ex Liturgy) for a special performance at Birmingham’s Eastside Projects on 12 November and will include a  live AV set from Mothwasp.

Featured track Venter (AURORA, 2014) judders into life as a tightly woven, hypnotic industrial rhythm against the omnipresent hum of atmospheric guitar throb. Soon, these elements coalesce to form a huge, expansive ‘mechanical system’.

Aside from Frost’s two most recent solo albums – 2011’s Sólaris and this year’s AURORA, the interstitial performer has collaborated, amongst others, with Wayne McGregor and companies in the sphere of contemporary dance; with the directors of Australian drama films Sleeping Beauty and In Her Skin, and – most notably – with Brian Eno as part of the Rolex and Protégé Arts Initiative.

‘Ben Frost’s interests are vast, and that includes the way he approaches his music. For all this, his music is equally fascinating when you strip away the context and simply let the sounds he’s making overtake you.’ – Pitchfork

Tickets for the performance can be purchased either from theticketsellers or from Milque & Muhle

(This post was written by Poppy Twist who is currently on placement at Capsule HQ)

In advance of our Ben Frost show, which takes place on Wed 12 November at Eastside Projects, in Digbeth we’ve put together a selection of related tracks for your listening pleasure. Enjoy!
Don’t forget tickets are available from theticketsellers.co.uk and from Milque & Muhle

Formerly of experimental black metal band Liturgy and a prolific collaborator and performer in his own right, Greg Fox will be playing alongside composer Ben Frost at Eastside Projects on 12 November as part of our Supersonic Presents series. In relentless pursuit of transcendental musical experiences, Fox’s rich and varied oeuvre includes Guardian Alien‘s 2012 ‘See the World Given to a One Love Entity’, a thirty-seven-minute psychedelic chant for the new era set to Fox’s fragmented, uninhibited drumming, and the three-piece incarnation of the avant-garde Zs’ 2013 ‘Wolf Government’, an exercise in exploring the very limits of free jazz drone which ‘made the floor shake’ at US community radio station CKUT. With a touring schedule that sees the drummer scale his way across Europe and New York City, Fox will join Frost in Birmingham with support from Mothwasp.
Tickets are available from theticketsellers or from Milque & Muhle based at the Custard Factory.

We’re pleased to announce that as part of the event we’re hosting at Eastside Projects on 12 Nov with Ben Frost and Greg Fox, Mothwasp will be presenting a special live AV set. Stephen J Taylor and Matthew J Watkins fuse improvised rhythms, field recordings, cinematic noise and analogue visuals. Taylor’s percussion anchors Watkins’ baritone guitar. Live shows employ lo-fi visual experiments in paint, collage, macrophotography, 35mm transparencies and scratch film loops made by the duo.

Mothwasp  – 23 july 2014 from Beat13 on Vimeo.

Capacity is limited and advanced tickets can be purchased from Milque & Muhle or via theticketsellers

We’re over the moon to announce a really special performance that we’ll be presenting at Eastside Projects with Australian composer Ben Frost who will be joined by Greg Fox (Liturgy) on drums. The show will take place on Wednesday 12 Nov.

The music of Ben Frost is about contrast; influenced as much by Classical Minimalism as by Punk Rock and Metal, Frost’s throbbing guitar-based textures emerge from nothing and slowly coalesce into huge, forbidding forms that often eschew conventional structures in favor of the inevitable unfoldings of vast mechanical systems.

Frost’s continuing fascination with finding ways of juxtaposing music, rhythm, technology, the body, performance, text, art -beauty and violence- combining and coalescing the roles and procedures of various artistic disciplines in one place.

Capacity is limited so get tickets while you can.

Trading Post is an exhibition of art ‘for trade’, a cornucopia of work made by artists from Birmingham and beyond. Taking a cue from the TV classic Multi Coloured Swap Shop, all the artworks in the exhibition will be available to swap. Visit the Pavilion in the Library foyer, peruse their wares and make an offer.

Offers can include time, skills, things or expertise – anything except money of any currency – ‘art for a haircut’, ‘art for cake’, ‘art for life coaching’ ‘art for welding’ for example. Once an offer has been made it
will be made public and if the contributing artist decides to take up the offered trade the swap will be arranged. Bartering and negotiation is welcome, and encouraged. .

Trading Post is presented by ESP (Extra Special People). This project is an extension of  ‘Trade Show’, a group exhibition at Eastside Projects that runs from 7 December 2013 – 22 February 2014.  ESP is Eastside Projects’ associate members scheme.

Events:
Thursday 12 December 2013, 6.30-7.30pm
Matthew Raine will give a talk on Marxist Economics during which artist Faith Pearson will make a series of small sculptures available for exchange to those attending.

Saturday 14 December 2013, 2-4pm
ESP members will present a series of conversations and performances.

List of artists:

Stuart Barnes / Leah Carless / Carruthers & Cresswell / Mateus Domingos / Freya Dooley / Mathew Ferguson / Bob Gelsthorpe / Andrew Gillespie / Calum Greaney / Amanda Grist / Aly Grimes / Maya Darrell Hewins / Kurt Hickson / Jim Howieson / Sarah Isaacs / Sam Jones / Ayse Kolu / Lucy McAllister / Kat Newman / Dan Newso / Susie Olczak / Faith Pearson / Sarah Silverwood / Laura Reeves

This blogpost was written by Beth Bramich for Eastside Projects, they present The Paperless Stack panel discussion on Saturday 7th December at Library of Birmingham, part of Volume.
The new Library of Birmingham is a huge investment in a public resource for the city at a time when the future of libraries across the country is uncertain.

 Interior, the Library of Birmingham. When explaining her vision for the Library lead architect Francine Houben said, “We don’t know what the future of the library will be so we have designed space for change, to last over the next 100 years.”

The new Library is intended to act as a centre for the community. Aiming to transform lives through learning, knowledge and culture, its remit stretches far beyond what we might expect from a traditional library, offering spaces to socialise, access local history, develop a business plan, attend a theatrical performance, visit an exhibition and more. But as much as the new Library embraces its many roles and seamlessly incorporates new technology throughout, it puts books at its heart.

The Library has been built to house a collection of over a million physical books, including printed materials dating from the 17th Century housed in the Shakespeare Memorial Library, but it has also been shaped by the digital innovations that have developed over the last two decade in publishing.

New digital formats for books are revolutionising the way we read. Accessed both through computers, mobile phones, tablets and dedicated devices, e-books offer readers instant access to the books that they want, and additional features such as search functions and a networked reading experience. E-book sales surged during 2011-2012 (in the US surpassing sales of hardcover books for the first time in early 2012) and while they have levelled somewhat in 2013, demand remains high from those who have been completely converted to e-ink, to those who now happily read across many different formats.

Third generation Amazon Kindle, showing text from the novel Moby-Dick.

At the same time as all these books, both print and digital, are being read, whether downloaded, bought online or picked up in your local book store, library usage is down. This is putting libraries, particular small local libraries, under pressure, as cuts to funding for local authorities are causing all spending on public services to be scrutinised.

One potential area for attracting new library users is to offer e-books as part of regular lending services. E-lending, where e-books can be borrowed from a library in the same manner as a physical book for a limited period of time, has had several set backs as a number of models for providing access to books and protecting their copyright have been put in place and then had to be re-worked as technology develops. A sustainable model that benefits publishers, libraries, authors and readers is still very much desired.

In the context of the new Library, which has responded to the challenges facing libraries by re-imagining its purpose and function, putting great emphasis on diversifying what it can offer and improving access to digital facilities, it is important to ask how all libraries can be resilient and adapt to the changing needs of their users.

View of the King’s Library at the British Library. Photograph by Mike Peel.

Access to e-books is just one part of a larger conversation about what the public want and expect from library services today. Could a new breed of centralised super-library, offering online access to their resources, completely replace the local library? Do we even need physical libraries or would public money be better invested in, for example, offering greater access to the Internet?

The Paperless Stack will open up a debate about how new technologies used to translate and publish books in digital formats are affecting existing libraries and shaping the libraries of the future. With a panel of representatives from within the library sector, including Brian Gambles, Director of the Library of Birmingham and Lucie Burgess, Head of Content Strategy, Research and Operations at the British Library, the publishing industry and in the field of design this will be an in-depth discussion about what the library as an institution might become.

Saturday 7th December, 3pm.
Eastside Projects presents The Paperless Stack
Library of Birmingham
Free, booking via www.birmingham-box.co.uk