Supersonic Festival

Friday July 24th – Sunday July 26th
The Custard Factory, Birmingham, England
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Line-up highlights so far: Head of David, Growing, Jarboe, Zu, PRE, Caribou, Genghis Tron, Flower/Corsano Duo, 65 Days of Static, Venetian Snares (latest full details)
Rumours, hopes et cetera: Supersonic organisers Capsule tend to pull a diverse range of specimens from the darkest of nooks, but what they do offer up is usually loud, odd or both. To that end, it’s hard to predict who will transpire on the line-up, though after last year’s event the fans seemed to want originators; the likes of Steve Reich, Sonic Youth, a reformed Can and Terry Riley and John Cale playing Church of Anthrax featuring heavily in these suggestions, along with other good shouts like Liars and Colleen. We’d break up the countless noise acts that will surely be added to the bill by asking Skull Disco to give their dark, doomsday dub one last airing, while minimalist forefather La Monte Young should be hailed to reprise the performance of Raga Sundara he’ll be giving in the Guggenheim this month. SALEM and Grouper also fit the ‘odd’ criteria and would be fine additions.
What to expect: Headache. One of the most arcane and diverse line-ups of any festival this summer. A superb merch area.
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Taken from http://drownedinsound.com/news/4136349

We’re really pleased to announce the addition of IRON LUNG to this years Supersonic Festivals line up.

For those uninitiated, IRON LUNG are a two-man band from Reno, NV that specialize in a brand of audio violence heretofore unknown in the extreme underground. Bearing marks of grind, power violence, thrash, and even oldschool HC, they are one of the handful of bands that have applied new and innovative approaches (arrangements, chords structures, thematic unities, etc) to their underground musical machinations. If you are one of the handful of people who remember the all-too-brief existence of KRILEZAC, then you know the foundation upon which this was built (IRON LUNG was born of the KRILEZAC ashes, although they have a more measured and sharp sound).

(taken from http://www.inmusicwetrust.com)

http://www.myspace.com/lifeironlungdeath

They join the initial Supersonic 09 line up – Head Of David/ 65 Days of Static /  Atomized/ Berg Sans Nipple / Caribou / Cave/ Chris Herbert / Diagonal / Earthless /Flower & Corsano Duo / Genghis Tron / Growing / Jarboe / Khyam Allami / Master Musicians Of Bukake/ Nancy Wallace / Pontiak / PRE /  Scorn / Skullflower/  Theo / Venetian Snares /Zu / ZzZ’s

Weekend tickets go on sale today exclusively for those on our mailing list – general release in April from
www.theticketsellers.co.uk

We’re pleased to announce some additions to the line up for Supersonic Festival 09,  24th – 26th of July, taking place in and around the Custard Factory in Birmingham. First up to be added are the beautiful dissonant occult noise act SKULLFLOWER, also joining the line up is SCORN aka Mick Harris (king of the blast beat)  and the new project combining Russell McEwan of Black Sun &  the electronic-vocal attack of Lea Cummings (Kylie Minoise) in the form of ATOMIZED .

To the uninitiated, Skullflower is one of the better-known bands that originated in the early 1980s power-electronics / noise scene, and one of the few to achieve any real recognition outside their homeland, especially in the United States . Unlike most of their contemporaries (such as Whitehouse, Con-Dom, Grey Wolves, etc.), they are an actual band (as opposed to one or two musicians employing a mix of instruments, synths, and tapes), and retained just enough of rock’s basic structure to attract the attention of people beyond the power-electronics genre.

Skullflower’s roots are in the European power-electronics / noise scene taking place in the early 1980s. A number of experimental musicians and bands who had grown bored with punk began experimenting with a more confrontational brand of volume-dependent artistic expression. Bands like Whitehouse, Final, Napalm Death, Con-Dom, Throbbing Gristle, The Grey Wolves, and the like were pushing the boundaries of sonic assault, employing damaged synths, guitar noise, unsettling tapes, and extreme volume to confront audiences. Swiping a page from punk’s DIY manual, most of them were also releasing their own material (and in some cases, the material of a great many others) on cassette and (when they could afford it) vinyl, to be sold at shows or by mail order.

SCORN

Scorn is the project of former Napalm Death drummer Mick Harris. The project was formed in the early ’90s by Harris along with Nic Bullen (one of the founder members of Napalm Death in 1981). Bullen left the group in April 1995 and the projects continues on to this day as an essentially one man show.

Scorn is/was often associated with industrial and experimental music, particularly in their earlier years as a duo with much of their Earache Records era output. Scorn considered a rare example of a successful industrial/downtempo crossover artist. Since the departure of Bullen, much of the output has been minimalist beats with an emphasis on very deep bass lines, often resembling dub and trip-hop in structure.
http://www.myspace.com/mjhscorn

ATOMIZED
Atomized is the what occurs when you combine the tribal percussion and bellows of Lovely Feyde Rautha (Russell McEwan of Black Sun) and the electronic-vocal attack of Lea Cummings (Kylie Minoise) as they reinterpret some well known pop songs from the 80s, or as they describe – “Raped versions of pop classics by Madonna, Visage, Howard Jones, Haircut 100, & Culture Club.” As you can imagine, the songs sound nothing like the original chart toppers, dwelling in a nocturnal grey area between Mummy and Daddy era-Whitehouse (especially on their Madonna and Visage cover) and Swans at their minimal best.

Equal parts industrial, noise and no-wave – it’s a heavy and merciless release from these two, the audio equivalent to Boy George’s night terrors in the clink. This will be released from Lea’s Kovorox Sound label in the not so distant future, be sure to catch their debut performance of this material at Glasgow Implodes this March.
www.kovoroxsound.com/

Initial Supersonic 09 line up – Head Of David/ 65 Days of Static /  Atomized/ Berg Sans Nipple / Caribou / Cave/ Chris Herbert / Diagonal / Earthless /Flower & Corsano Duo / Genghis Tron / Growing / Jarboe / Khyam Allami / Master Musicians Of Bukake/ Nancy Wallace / Pontiak / PRE /  Scorn / Skullflower/  Theo / Venetian Snares /Zu / ZzZ’s

Tickets go on sale the first week of March exclusively to those on our mailing list, followed by additional tickets in April
You can join the mailing list here to guarantee first round of tickets. join now

“It was an incredible experience that was quality throughout – every detail accounted for, every nerve stimulated! Fantastic to spend an entire weekend talking about and listening to music with people who really love it too. And getting to tell the musicians how much you appreciated them was a real bonus. A life changing experience – never been more in love with music- THANK YOU! XXX” Audience feedback

We hope each year people go away from Supersonic having discovered a few gems, often the line up is made up of names that you might not recognise just yet! – but its worth being adventurous as the rewards are well worth it.
Here are  some of the highlights from previous Supersonic Festivals including 2008’s immense performance by the  incredible Harvey Milk featuring the mighty Joe Preston – these guys blew audiences away on the Saturday night – fists in the air, tears in the eyes!!! Supersonic were proud to bring these guys over to Europe for the first time after a few years of gentle persuasion. Other great performances were by Merzbow in collaboration with Keiji Haino as Kikuri, the Danish ensemble Efterklang, comic antics by Fucked Up and the blissful end performance by Krautrock legends Harmonia.

Harvey Milk 2008

2007 saw a unique collaboration by the Oxbow Duo with Stephen O’Malley,  Justin Broadrick, Dave Cochrane & Chipper, the first European show for David Yows Qui, a near riot during Wolf Eyes and a co headline performance by Sunn0))) and Mogwai.

2007 report for Supersonic by BBC

2006 saw the thunderous High on Fire headline the outside stage whilst in the Factory club audiences went berserk for Zombi & Circle.

High On Fire 2006

Zombi 2006

Circle 2006

2005 was the infamous year of the bomb – when the whole of Birmingham city centre was evacuated due to  a bomb scare including our festival – we all had to vacate the Digbeth area but not before having witnessed amazing sets by Battles, Dalek and Tunng amongst a host of others. The much anticipated collaboration by Stephen O’Malley and Merzbow had to be postponed as did a perfromance by PTV.

2005 Supersonic short film
In 2003, our very first Supersonic Festival took place over the water at the Custard Factory, with live performances by Coil and a very early live show by LCD Sound System. Happy days!

Coil Supersonic 2003

Let us know what your highlights have been…

We are trying to keep up with technology by signing up to Twitter, feel free to follow us with all the latest news to do with Supersonic Festival and of course if Frank ( the puppy dog) does anything amazing like looking cuter than normal. http://twitter.com/supersonicfest
Twitter illustration by Ben Javens, part of his bird and pattern series. Cute dog courtesy of Frank (Capsule head of security)

First ever Supersonic Festival design by CHU

Walsall born artist, CHU ( famous for his ‘Your Mum Rang’ sticker campaign) has produced a three colour signed screen print, limited to an edition of 50, 500mm x 700mm on archival acid-free, bright white Bread & Butter 270gsm.

They’ll be available from the Dreweatts collections during February, further details here.
Designed for Supersonic Festival 2003 which saw live performances from Coil, V/VM, LCD Sound System and The Bug amongst a host of other fine acts. Brings back happy naive memories of building a stage over the ‘lake’ at the Custard Factory, until we realised we could have electrocuted the entire audience, happy days.

Supersonic Festival 2003 over water

SUPERSONIC 2009 24TH – 26TH July Birmingham UK
Crafting extraordinary events for adventurous audiences combining music, art, film & cake.

“Of this welter of well organised, wisely curated festivals (ATP, Faster Than Sound, Sonar, Greenman) perhaps the best organised and most wisely curated was Supersonic. Plotted by Birmingham promoters Capsule, 2007’s Supersonic inhabited the nexus where metal, folk and noise met.” Plan B Magazine

“Supersonic, in our opinion the best festival in the world right now”
Rock-A-Rolla Magazine

”AS British music festivals go, Birmingham’s annual Supersonic event is the best kind of mixed musical bag, a dizzying assortment of avant rock textures and Heavy Metal thunder on a bill which swings from the sublime to the ridiculous without once seeming ostentatiously eclectic.” The Wire

We are pleased to announce the first confirmations – including HEAD OF DAVID who bring their driving bombast to proceedings for the first time in 23 years – for this year’s festival, which will take place in Birmingham on 24TH – 26TH of July 2009.

Now in it’s 7th year, the event will once again take place at the Custard Factory utilising the many rooms for music, art, film & of course cake.

Additional confirmations will follow in the upcoming weeks, but the line-up is shaping up to be another extravaganza – the rather incredible former Swan, JARBOE; the expansive drone-noise of GROWING; Brighton’s prog adventure, DIAGONAL; the wild avant futuristic jazz of ZU; the stoned pysch of EARTHLESS, the Virginian sludge rock of PONTIAK, the industrial experiments of 65 DAYS OF STATIC, the immense duo that is FLOWER/CORSANO DUO, KHYAM ALLAMI and one of the finest folk vocalists NANCY WALLACE will be featured in the line-up, once again highlighting the highly eclectic booking policy of the festival.

Initial line up :
Head Of David/ 65 Days of Static / Berg Sans Nipple / Caribou / Cave/ Chris Herbert / Diagonal / Earthless /Flower & Corsano Duo / Genghis Tron / Growing / Jarboe / Khyam Allami / Master Musicians Of Bukake/ Nancy Wallace / Pontiak / PRE / Theo / Venetian Snares /Zu / ZzZ’s
Many more to be announced over the coming months

Tickets go on sale early April
https://www.theticketsellers.co.uk/

For hotel deals and to volunteer check
www.capsule.org.uk/supersonic

Tickets are now on sale for a host of new and exciting shows we have coming up at Capsule.
Just confirmed a new signing to Constellation Records ( home to GYBE! and A Silver Mnt Zion) are Seattle based The Dead Science with support from Worcester based Theo who will be performing at the Hare & Hounds on the 5th of Nov.

Another treat on the horizon is Racebannon, a genre-defying avant hardcore punk band from Indianapolis who formed in 1996. They begun as a screamo band on Witching Hour Records and have now evolved to produce bone crushing riffs and manic vocals, a kin to Melt Banana. Support for this comes from Dream Dreams The Dreamer (aka Matt from Esquilax who we should add is a wonderful illustrator and has designed covers for Gallows to name but a few) and the infamous casio-grind trio, Trencher. It should be noted that Lyam from Trencher is himself a talented artist and a member of Drumize along with DJ Scotch Egg, who performed at Supersonic 08.
Check out this amazing video by Trencher, it will melt your mind!