Capsule and Fierce Festival combined their expertise in producing cutting edge music, contemporary art and live experiences to create this very unique event, the Secret Show.

Blindfolded throughout, the audience were guided through Birmingham city centre to a warehouse space where they witnessed the immersive sounds of internationally renowned sound artist Francisco Lopez in a scenario designed by artist James Webb.

For Fierce 2012, Capsule also presented a night of performances featuring Liz Harris as Grouper, who presented her work Violet Replacement, a haunting performance comprising tape loops, field recordings and submerged atmospherics. Diamond Catalog stunned with disorientating, mutated dance music. Sian Macfarlane as SWLLWS presented a new work entitled ‘Séance’ incorporating family snaps, slides, and super 8 footage as well as found sounds. SWLLWS built further on these themes for a performance at Supersonic Festival 2012.

Capsule presented an evening of the occult, with visionary rock musician and musicologist Julian Cope. Cope presented one of his infamous lectures, similar to those given at the British Museum in 2001, based on his years of study of the occult, mythology and Britain’s prehistory and responsible for best- seller THE MODERN ANTIQUARIAN, a full colour 484-page hardback that shocked the publishing world by selling over 50,000 copies.

This lecture was followed by a screening of cult film Häxan – Witch Craft through The Ages (1922, dir. Benjamin Christensen, Swedish/Danish) accompanied by a live soundtrack by art house electronix outfit Bronnt Industries Kapital.

Capsule curated a night of extreme music as part of Fierce 2007 with performances by Isis, KTL and OXBOW Duo.

Isis create their own universe and rules, they are uncompromisingly heavy, slow and brutal, but apply a deftness of touch that so many other bands using the quiet/loud dynamic miss completely.

KTL is a collaboration between Stephen O’Malley and Peter Rehberg, two of the most celebrated artists in the world of extreme music. A collaboration taking in parallel worlds of Extreme Computer Music and Black Metal. A collision of the light and the dark.

The Robinson-Wenner Acoustic Duo, sits astride the low-fi fence like an ogre of less than obvious intent with its renditions of OXBOW’s musical back catalog, as well as music created specially for these rare events. A must see, hear, now.

A journey beyond sonic barriers into the outer reaches of sound, the Demon lapdancing club is the launchpad for the blast of decibels and decadence that is Sounds Of Excess^TM.

Curated by Capsule, Sounds Of Excess^TM brought together an army of experimental musicians for this aggressive auditory assault.

Eugene Robinson and Niko Wenner are the lynchpins of OXBOW, the San Francisco quartet who combine musique concrete with free jazz and punk.

Other performing acts included:

Capricorns

Noise Noise Allore!

Vanishing

Crystal Wrists

Ron Athey

Marc Almond has been brightening up this grubby little island with showbiz sleaze for over 20 years – as one half of the short-lived but hugely influential Soft Cell, with other 80s combos Marc and the Mambos and the Willing Sinners, and solo as a decadent crooner keeping the Brel flame alight. He has collaborated with everyone from Gene Pitney to Foetus.

For this one-off event Lydia Lunch was joined onstage by old friends Eugene Robinson and Niko Wenner from OXBOW, according to Vice magazine “the greatest art rock band in the world”. The Robinson-Wenner Acoustic Duo, with sonic and video treatments, sits astride the low-fi fence like an ogre of less than obvious intent with its renditions of OXBOW’s musical back catalog, as well as music created specially for these rare events.

The show also included performances by Norway’s Noxagt and London band Selfish Cunt.

Capsule curated a night as part of Fierce 2002 with performances by People Like Us, Andrea Parker and Penny McConnell.

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. People Like Us broadcasts an ongoing experimental arts radio and podcast show on WFMU, called “DO or DIY”, which, since it began in 2003, has had over a million “listen again” downloads.

An avid enthusiast of classic analogue synthesizers and drum machines, Andrea Parker decided to go into writing and production, starting off experimenting with sounds,  sampling and manipulating them. Her production method is both unconventional and experimental; she has used the sound of her own sneezes, car tires running over cat’s eyes on the road and strapped a mic to the bottom of her car whilst going through a car wash to create bass tones.

Penny McConnell of Tokyo Lucky Hole presented awkward indie and Japanese pop, accompanied by an eclectic visual collection of found footage.

A unique collaboration between internationally acclaimed Berlin based music and performance trio Chicks on Speed, Birmingham based musicians Sand and visual artist Ravi Deepres.

A poster campaign in and around Birmingham city centre was devised, created and implemented by Chicks on Speed.

The collective took on the Beatles, performing on the roof of the Ikon Gallery. Chicks on Speed provided text, performance and costume whilst Sand layered musical elements and Birmingham based artist Ravi Deepres provided visual projections.