Photo of Black Sabbath fans at Download Festival 2016 – Katja Ogrin

Arts Council England is investing £450,000 in Capsule’s international plans to celebrate the musical influence and fandom of the Birmingham-born band, Black Sabbath.

Capsule will receive £450,000 from the Arts Council’s Ambition for Excellence programme to take its Home of Metal programme global.

The Arts Council’s investment will support Capsule to create a three-year international programme inspired by the story of how four working-class lads from Birmingham changed the face of music with some financial power.

The funding will help bring together Black Sabbath fans with artists, academic institutions and cultural venues around the world to explore the cultural legacy of the band and the musical genre it created.

The Home of Metal programme will officially launch in February 2017 in Birmingham on the final UK date of Black Sabbath’s last world tour.

Peter Knott, Area Director, Arts Council England said: “Our Ambition for Excellence fund helps arts and cultural organisations produce excellent work with an international dimension – which is exactly what Capsule are setting out to do with Home of Metal. Over the last few years, Capsule has created events and exhibitions that celebrate music from Birmingham and the Black Country. Now it will be brilliant to see our funding supporting them to reach out to international audiences, exploring and sharing how the cultural heritage of the West Midlands has shaped musical tastes around the world.”

Lisa Meyer, Artistic Director, Capsule said: “This support from Arts Council England will enable Capsule to develop the next ambitious phase of Home of Metal and take the project to a global audience, we will be celebrating what is at the heart of the genre, the fans and putting them centre stage.”

Tony Iommi, Guitarist of Black Sabbath said: “An artist or band’s success can be measured by their relationship with the fans and the success of the ‘Home of Metal’ exhibition brought home just how dedicated and loyal ours are. It’s always humbling to realise how you’ve touched people’s lives with your music, a project where fans are actively involved would be great.”

Through the creation of a new digital archive, commissioned artworks and a touring exhibition, Home of Metal will reach out to the band’s fans in Birmingham and beyond, including those in Brazil, Chile, India, Indonesia, Malaysia and the USA.

Using social media to curate and share stories, memorabilia and photographs, Home of Metal will shed light on the global impact of Black Sabbath’s music and fandom through the creation of contemporary, digital archive and international touring exhibition.

The programme will end with festival season in Birmingham and the Black Country featuring new artworks, events and exhibitions.

The season will include an extended version of the international touring exhibition at Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery designed by Morag Myerscough. At The New Art Gallery Walsall, Home of Metal will work with curators to showcase fan’s own collections, building on the legacy of the People’s Show in 1990.

At Centrala, artists  will create works in response to the creative ways fans have found to share music whilst living under repressive regimes, from X-Ray generated records to pirate radio.

Keep up to date www.homeofmetal.com

“Fundamentally, this is a city of gangs and individuals working in comparative isolation, which encourages driven oddballs and out-there ideas. Look at the annual Supersonic festival or Brum bands from Black Sabbath to Dexys Midnight Runners.”

Capsule’s Artistic Director, Lisa Meyer did an interview for The Guardian to share some of the cities cultural treasures and created a mix of tracks to represent Birmingham’s music scene.

You can read the article HERE

Boredoms photo by Katja Ogrin

Job Description: Programme Assistant
Fee £10,720 3 days per week + 5 flexi days freelance contract (equivalent to 18k pro rata)
Term 9th Jan 2017 – Dec 2017

BACKGROUND
Capsule crafts extraordinary cultural projects for adventurous audiences to challenge expectations and make connections. Audiences are at the heart of our thinking. We champion extraordinary artists, working across digital culture, sound and performance, ensuring many can enjoy them. Our work is of the highest quality, authentic and inclusive, our role as cultural developer – spotting as-yet unmet potential and building on it.

Since 1999, Capsule have been a leading cultural producer, initiating and delivering multi-disciplinary projects that engage audiences locally and globally. Supersonic Festival is our core project; now in its 13th year it attracts audiences, performers and industry interest from across the globe. Named by Stuart Maconie, BBC 6 Music as ‘the UK’s premier experimental music festival” and named number two in The Times guide to the fifty best events of the summer (2015). The ground-breaking heritage project Home of Metal saw audiences of 200,000 and was shortlisted for a National Lottery Heritage Award. From hand crafted wooden structures designed by the award winning Studio Myerscough which acted as a billboard for the opening of the largest library in Europe to an immersive installation with remote control cars with styli attached, which raced across a track constructed from 1000’s of disused vinyl records nestled under a giant viaduct, to a stupendous procession of unexplored rhythms, unsung songs, unexplainable creatures and un-mythical beings set on a village green in Stoke on Trent.

Capsule seeks a motivated and enthusiastic Programme Assistant to support the delivery of our year-round programme.

The Programme Assistant will focus on marketing and promotion of Capsule’s programme and provide administrative support to the company’s Artistic Director and Executive Producer. For the company’s flagship festival, Supersonic 2017, s/he will undertake the role of Artists’ Liaison, overseeing all the logistical needs of the festival’s artists. The successful candidate will be an organised and proactive individual with an excellent understanding of social media and marketing and good administrative and copywriting skills. A good knowledge of experimental music and arts is also required as the Programme Assistant will contribute to programming.

For an application pack please email [email protected] with ‘Programme Assistant’ in the subject. Deadline Tuesday 6 December, 6pm

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 many 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 / Ex Easter Island Head (solo)
+ Sausage DJ’s
Milque & Muhle pop up record stall

A huge thanks to all of you that came to see John Carpenter at Warwick Arts Centre, I’m sure you’ll agree he performed an incredible set and is truely the Master of Horror. These photos by Katja Ogrin capture the night perfectly.

Dear All,

Capsule has been creating work for you, our loyal and curious audiences, since 1999.

We have made the decision to take this year off from delivering Supersonic festival and are setting ourselves a challenge: in a UK with 1,000 festivals how can we keep producing adventurous work that is distinct and groundbreaking? We want to show you something new, offer challenging and memorable experiences, and support artists to achieve their most ambitious work.

We need your help.  In addition to learning and collaborating with other art organisations, businesses and artists, we want to hear from you.

What do you love about Supersonic / Capsule’s work?
Can we make improvements?
What new collaborations do you think we could make happen?we already have many sponsors, just check out these people and learn so much more.
How could the festival grow and change?

Supersonic operates on mixed sources of income, a combination of ticket sales from our loyal audiences, grant funding from the Arts Council and trusts/foundations, and some support from donors. Fundraising can be time-consuming, highly competitive and bit unpredictable, however it would be very difficult (if impossible) to produce work with the Supersonic level of ambition on ticket sales alone, so grant funding will remain an important part of our income. Capsule is a not-for-profit enterprise, which relies on your support, so we are extremely grateful to our audiences, artists and funders.

To ensure that the next Supersonic is the most adventurous and exciting yet, we will use 2016 to recharge the batteries and do things differently. Capsule’s Artistic Director Lisa Meyer is already laying the groundwork for Supersonic Festival 2017, and there’ll be other Capsule activity in 2016, so keep your eyes peeled.

Thank you so much, and we look forward to more exciting music, art, performance (and cake) very soon.

Lisa Meyer, Creative Director

Capsule’s director Lisa Meyer has been selected to participate in a very exciting project led by British Council, PRS Foundation, BFI and Home.

Film, Archive and Music Lab will explore the creative potential of collaboration between the worlds of cinema, film archive and music. The British Council has invited 18 artists and producers – including music makers, film makers and video game composers – to take part in a series of workshops, masterclasses, screenings and networking events all with the aim of increasing opportunities for cross-sector work, while providing a fertile breeding ground for future collaborations.

Read more HERE

“Godspeed You! Black Emperor are a band that can use the trappings of feedback, noise, and drones in equal balance with melody and rhythm to lead you to genuinely higher place.”
read the full review HERE

Thanks to Katja Ogrin for capturing this epic performance, and a huge thanks to so many of you that turned out to see Godspeed’s first performance in the Midlands in over 13 years. Let’s hope we don’t have to wait quite so long for their return.
If you get the chance check out Dead Rat Orchestra who are a truly unique ensemble and played an amazing opening set.