Day tickets are available now via https://www.theticketsellers.co.uk and of course weekend tickets can still be purchased for £80. Not bad for three days of adventurous music, art, film, workshops, talks and more!

And here’s a reminder of some events that are free to weekend ticket holders, but require booking.

Counting In: The Art of Listening

In partnership with Sound and Music, we are presenting an intriguing panel exploring contexts for the presentation of sound works and performances and approaches to listening. The panel will include artist Lucas Abela (aka Justice Yeldham and creator of the Vinyl Rally), music writer Frances Morgan, Curator Irene Revell (Electra) and composer Dr Simon Hall. An excellent way to start the weekend, the event will take place Friday 19 October, 1.30pm-5.00pm at Birmingham City University’s School of Art. This event is free to weekend ticket holders, but you do need to book a place by emailing [email protected] with ‘Listening’ in the title. Otherwise, tickets can be purchased for £10 via https://www.theticketsellers.co.uk

Imperfect Cinema: Hallide Oxide

An amazing opportunity to learn DIY cinema techniques, participants will also contribute visuals to Drunk in Hell’s set. Imperfect Cinema will be joined by renowned sonic and visual artist Nicholas Bullen to discuss Imperfect Cinema and its influences, including the seminal Crass Records ‘Bullshit Detector’ compilation albums which featured the first vinyl appearance of Napalm Death. The workshop is free to weekend ticket holders but capacity is limited, to book a place email [email protected],uk with ‘Imperfect Cinema’ in the subject line.

Supersonic audience by Mark R Rhodes

Want to feature in our Zine…well Supersonic is doing a call out for all previous festival attendees to share their memories of the festival with us. The question we have chosen is “How would you describe your favourite Supersonic experience in a tweet of no more than 140 characters?”

In those 140 characters, we want you to sum up your experiences of previous festivals, highlighting key moments and memorable performances. You could even comment on your experiences in the legendary Supersonic tea room, marketplace or elsewhere!

Send your posts to either [email protected] or [email protected] by the 14th September and we will do our best to print as many as possible. We look forward to hearing from you! And of course feel free to tweet us your response @supersonicfest

We’re very pleased to confirm that as well as performing with Bill Nace as Body/Head, Kim Gordon will be presenting her installation Reverse Karaoke at Supersonic Festival. This collaborative installation by Kim Gordon and Jutta Koether consists of a painted Yurt style tent housing a lo-fi rehearsal set-up with guitar, microphone, bass, and drums. The visitor is invited to play the instruments and record their own music along with a pre-recorded vocal track of Kim Gordon’s voice. The track is recorded live by a sound engineer who burns two CD copies of the track, while the visitor decorates two CD sleeves using materials in the gallery. One copy of the CD becomes part of the piece itself on display in a record box, and the other the visitor takes home. This installation will take place at Eastside Projects 19-21 October.

Another new highlight includes Modified Toy Orchestra , festival alumni who first performed in 2005 (some may remember the set that was cut short due to the bomb scare) and again in 2006. In 2012, Modified Toy Orchestra continue to explore the hidden potential and surplus value latent inside redundant technology; a process creating sophisticated new electronic instruments from abandoned children’s toys. The results of this process can be shockingly beautiful, funny and also extreme.

In partnership with Sound and Music, Supersonic present a half-day extended panel discussion exploring contexts for the presentation of sound works and performances and approaches to listening. Bringing together artists, academics and industry professionals Counting In: The Art of Listening is an opportunity for a discuss how artists and producers can best stage work, how audiences can be best encouraged to enjoy it and how we can all become better listeners. Participants in the panel discussion include artist Lucas Abela (aka Justice Yeldman), music writer Frances Morgan (deputy editor at The Wire Magazine), curator Irene Revell (Electra) and Dr.Simon Hall (composer, sound engineer and academic).

In-keeping with tradition, Supersonic proudly announce the Kid’s Gigs programme which will this year feature Flower/Corsano Duo and Islaja, the sole aim being to create big sounds with little people. Though really, this is fun for all the family!

Other programme additions include:

Grey Hairs – The kind of raucous grunge that can only be created by kids from the 90s

The Outcrowd’s Festival of the Rea – An exhibition exploring the lost myths and pagan rituals of Digbeth

Moonn – A haunting performance inspired by the Heavens Above, featuring Conny Prantera and Mark Wagner of Sunday Mourning

Wildman Life Drawing – A drop in drawing session featuring a semi tame Wildman

SOUNDkitchen – Electroacoustic composers perform in the Theatre Space

Scratch ‘n’ Phase – Come and destroy some CDs and needles in the name of noise in this sound work where you control the volume.

Blood Harvest – A collection of films looking at the wild stuff that happens way out on the back roads. Curated by Network Awesome.

Trash Humpers – Harmony Korine’s 2009 drama centred around an elderly cult in Nashville, Tennessee

Black Mass Rising – A lo fi experimental film exploring visions of the darkness, The Mystic, The Occult, The Religious and The Apocalypse.

Volunteers chopping lemons backstage in 2012 – one of the many and varied tasks to undertake over the weekend!

SUPERSONIC NEEDS YOU!

Capsule’s internationally renowned festival runs 19-21 October 2012 and there are plenty of opportunities to get involved as a volunteer.

We need a dedicated team of volunteers to help deliver Supersonic over the festival weekend (19-21 October) and also in the run up to the festival (early October onwards). We expect a minimum of 12 hours over the festival period in exchange for a weekend wristband.

The festival is small enough for everyone involved as a volunteer to gain an overview of how the festival works, and to give real input and value.

A regular Supersonic volunteer, Ross Cotton wrote this piece about the life working behind the scenes last year, have a look via http://domesticcity.posterous.com/

HOW TO APPLY:

Please click through to download the application form

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AjucQi45lUQqdGpGYWp0YTZSZEpYUVFPUlpkTndBbEE

Completed application forms should be emailed to volunteer[at]capsule.org.uk by 5pm on Tuesday 25th September. Please mark in the subject line of the email VOLUNTEER. If you have any issues downloading the application form, contact volunteer[at]capsule.org.uk and we can email you a copy direct.

The first volunteer meeting will take place on Tuesday 2^nd October, 6.30pm at Custard Factory where you will be able to find out more about the festival and meet the team.

NB/ unfortunately we can only consider applicants who are 18 years old and over.

Folks we have just 5 days left of our We Fund campaign with the aim of raising £5000, the campaign asks those of you, in the position to, to support us by making a donation to Supersonic Festival this year. Your donations will help us to continue to put together a highly ambitious festival programme, allowing us to take risks on emergent artists and unique collaborations. We are hoping our loyal audience can help us further our ambition for this unique event. We’re currently at 87% which is pretty remarkable but without reaching the full 100% we get none of the funds raised. So dig deep – every bit helps.

Thank yous include an invite to a very special 10th birthday tea party which will take place over the weekend of the festival, and will give you the opportunity to share some sweet treats and a nice glass of fizz to toast 10 years of adventurous music and meet with some of the artists performing at the festival.

In addition there are some limited places left for our Sonic Feast, a unique sound led dining experience, featuring bespoke and unusual concoctions to celebrate the festival’s 10th year in style. Produced by Companis,  a nomadic artist and curatorial practice creating bespoke dining experiences that immerse the diner in performance, food and spectacle.

Many thanks to the 63 generous folks that have already funded us – much appreciated.
FUND US HERE

Thank to all who came to Corsica Studios last Thursday for our second Supersonic Taster. It was a bass heavy line up of King Midas Sound, JK Flesh (Justin Broadrick) and Glatze who all tested the excellent sound system there to its very limits also to Corsica Studios and The Quietus.

Freq have posted up this review of the show

King Midas Sound take the stage through a haze of dry ice, pumping a wall of sound that makes even JK Flesh seem quiet, with bass that makes your trousers dance before your feet have even had a chance to move. The twin vocal performances of Roger Robinson and Kiko Hitomi, somehow melodic, strident and languid all at the same time, put a human edge on proceedings, while behind the desk Martin unleashes the robots. It’s heavy. REALLY heavy. Imagine a Mezzanine-era Massive Attack hiding themselves behind a wall of sound with the biggest, and most stoned reggae sound system you ever heard, only breaking cover to pop out every now and then to punch you in the face. It’s like that. And it’s the perfect pick-me-up after the relentless vitriol of JK Flesh; the two acts complement each other perfectly. It would appear Broadrick and Martin being in the same room is ALWAYS an awesome proposition, even if they’re not making noise at the same time as each other. Read the full review HERE

We hope these tasters have given you a good opportunity to check out some of the artists due to perform at the festival and other interesting musicians we’re working with. King Midas Sound’s Kevin Martin will perform at October’s festival as The Bug, Justin will return with his JK Flesh project and Sam ‘Glatze’ Underwood will perform as part of a new collaboration – Ore and KK Null.

The Supersonic Taster have formed an exciting extension of our 10th anniversary celebrations. Other 10th birthday events include a special Tea Party and the Sonic Feast, which act as a thank you to those who have supported the festival through our We Fund campaign. There’s only a few days left to support and secure a place at one of these events. Learn more via http://wefund.com/project/supersonic-festival-10th-anniversary/p27749/

To celebrate the 10th edition of the festival, we are proud to host a number of special collaborations where you can see known performers embarking upon unknown sounds. One such performance we are proud to present is Oxbow Orchestra. Expect strings, woodwinds, brass, operatic backing vocals and classically contained renderings of the Oxbow song book, featuring Eugene S Robinson and Niko Wenner from Oxbow and an Orchestra who will deliver songs new and old in a format unaccustomed to the blood and sweat of a typical Oxbow outing. The textbook definition of ONCE IN A LIFETIME. This ties in very nicely with the first film announcement which will be The Luxury Of Empire, a very intimate portrait of Oxbow at the peak of their artistic maturity, candid interviews and live footage reveals the trials and tribulations of this band. The film programme is coming together nicely with Jeremy Deller’s ‘The Bruce Lacey Experience’ and a number of films curated by Jason Forrest at Network Awesome.

From one large scale event to a couple more (well it is our tenth birthday after all!) Lash Frenzy will perform ‘Vir Heroicus Sublimis’ as an improvised noise collective, featuring members of Anaal Nathrackh, Beestung Lips, Benediction, Sally and Einstellung. Another distinctive pairing will see KK Null and Birmingham’s own ORE in sonic battle. In many ways, KK Null’s collaboration with Lash Frenzy at Supersonic 2010 (with ORE’s Sam on tuba) acted as a proof of concept for the sound of ORE, so it’s entirely fitting to bring the two entities together this year.

The issue of creating art in challenging times is one close to the festival’s heart and an exciting panel discussion will see the topic dissected by some truly inspirational practitioners.. The discussion is called ‘You Can Be You’ and will feature an array of maverick artists including Penny Rimbaud, Jarboe and Eugene Robinson. Offering an insight into some of the hows and whys of maintaining an independent spirit whilst on the very edge of the avant-garde, the panel will debate such topics as, how is the drive to make art is sustained under sometimes-difficult circumstances? and after many years of writing and touring music, will the desire to create ever be satiated?

Given the success of Imperfect Cinema’s cinematic workshop last year, we have invited the team back to host a free workshop exploring DIY modes of filming and cinema only this time, the footage people gather using Super 8 cameras will be edited and used as visuals for Drunk in Hell’s performance. All in all, an exciting opportunity for festival goers to be part of the performance and for them to utilise the unique industrial backdrop in a highly creative way. If you’re interested in booking a place, email [email protected] with ‘Imperfect Cinema’ in the subject line.

Vinyl Rally will be a large-scale installation combining sound art, video art and kinetic sculpture into every kid and kidult’s dream-hybrid; an immersive participatory play-set playing off vinyl fetishism, video arcade mystique and the machismo of motor sports in a video game played within a real world setting! Classic first person video racing is simulated as remote control cars with styli attached, race across a track constructed from a mass of disused vinyl records. This installation will be realised by Australian artist and glass eating expert Lucas Abela AKA Justice Yeldham. Who’s excited to have a go on this mean machine?

Phew! Lots more info to come, as well as day tickets and volunteering opportunities. Weekend tickets are available to purchase via http://www.supersonicfestival.com/tickets and don’t forget, if you want to see these sorts of ambitious projects continue, you can support us via our We Fund campaign

The second of our Supersonic Tasters takes place tomorrow night at London’s Corsica Studios. The heavy bass of King Midas Sound is joined by Justin Broadrick’s (Godflesh, Napalm Death, Techno Animal) new JK Flesh project. The Midlands’ very own Glatze aka Sam Underwood also takes to the stage to round up an exciting line up.

Tickets are £10 and can be purchased via http://www.corsicastudios.com/