We are extremely pleased to be bringing this very special show with some of the most talented and inventive young Arabic players to Birmingham. Fresh from a performance with the Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra as part of the Liverpool Arab

Arts Festival, the Alif Ensemble will perform at Ikon Gallery on Thursday 19th July.

The Ensemble will feature the magnificent Khyam Allami on oud. See below his previous performances at Supersonic, both solo and with Master Musicians of Bukkake.

Tickets are £8 or £6 concessions and available from theticketsellers

http://www.khyamallami.com/alifensemble/

We are delighted to announce that Vermont’s MV & EE will play Birmingham this September as part of their Home Comfort Sound System tour. This should be a really special occasion as the contemporary folk-blues duo will be playing with the hand built sound system combined with visuals in the form of 16mm projections, slides, oils, and customised lighting. Each performance on the tour will be unique, responding to their surroundings.

They will perform in the Gallery Space of the Custard Factory on Wednesday 19th September with support from Health & Efficiency. Tickets are £10 and available from https://www.theticketsellers.co.uk/

To get us all excited for the forthcoming show with Unsane and Big Business next month, here’s some live footage from the current tour.

Wednesday 4th July
Unsane + Big Business
@ Rainbow Warehouse

Tickets are available via https://www.theticketsellers.co.uk

DIY magazine have posted up a video of Americana psych folk group Sleepy Sun performing in the grounds of Alexander Palace at last month’s I’ll Be Your Mirror event in London – with the help of some younger fans…

Click here to watch Sleepy Sun perform ‘Acid Love’ and ‘Siouxie Blaqq’

Sleepy Sun perform at Hare & Hounds on 10th September. Tickets are available via theticketsellers

Americana space rockers Sleepy Sun will perform at the Hare & Hounds on Monday 10th September. For fans of Dead Meadow, Black Mountain and Jefferson Airplane, this should be a perfect late summer, hazy evening show.

Tickets are on sale now for £10 via https://www.theticketsellers.co.uk/

Trailer for their most recent album ‘Spine Hits’:

HARVEY MILK

Birmingham Hare And Hounds – 22nd May 2012

Review by Matthew Tilt

It’s a rare enough event to catch the incredible Harvey Milk live in the UK; to catch them on Harvey Milk Day is something that puts the average mind at the risk of exploding. It seems pointless discussing and debating what genre these Georgian boys fall into because in the live setting they fit neatly into some heavy, nasty and obscure corner of jazz.

You’re all looking at me now; wondering what the hell I took before I saw Harvey Milk but I assure I know what I’m talking about here. You see, escaping from the heat and into the top room of the Hare and Hounds I stumbled into the venue a little disorientated and I stood staring wide eyed at the three piece on stage, each riff creating a monolith of feedback that literally shook people in front of me.

The advantage of seeing the band literally working like cogs in front of you, is that you see where each song starts, and every time it started from the slightest thing and built up around this idea creating something that seemed simple, deceptively so because in reality it was something that carried a complexity that kept all three in time and in sync with each other.

Creston slips his inimitable voice into crevices and cracks

in the music; wailing like a shaman or crooning before he rocks out in sudden, almost improvisational blasts of good, solid classic rock. There’s no such thing as a perfect set, but it’s hard to think of a better one. Half the time they don’t even need to speak because the crowd stay transfixed throughout, only daring to move when the speakers roar with the openings of a new song, and never daring to disrespect something as rare and as beautifully ugly as a Harvey Milk performance.

Review from sonicshocks.com

Saturday 26th May at Club PST, 71 Lombard St, Digbeth, Birmingham
What if science fiction had become fiction?
What if we’d moved to Mars?
What if robots lived amongst us?
What if we owned flying cars?

Prepare yourself for a night of cosmic wonders with Kismet at PST on the roof, as we take you into a future that never was.

The term retro-futurism  developed into a music scene predominantly in Birmingham, which included the bands Broadcast, Pram, Plone, Novak, Avrocar and Magnetophone (and most famously, outside of Birmingham, Stereolab and St Etienne).

With future hip-hop, 60s psych, psych-funk and electronica DJ sets, Kismet aims to delve deeper into the themes of retro-futurism.

Kismet are also delighted to announce that Mark ‘Mack’ Macdonald will be Djing in the main room, who will be bringing along some of his famous visuals.
Mack ran the renowned club Sensateria in Birmingham from 1984-1994. The 60s psych-themed events offered an alternative night out for non-strict-mods and non-strict-rockers in the 80s, and brought live performances from the likes of Spacemen 3.

Retro-Afro-Futurism is in conjunction with the ‘Something in the Water’ magazine launch, featuring an in depth article with Broadcast, Plone, Pram, Tele:Funken, Brian Duffy, Seeland, Stereolab and Mack (Sensateria) about the Birmingham underground movement.

DJ sets on the roof from:

Bobbalin’ Hot (Rea River Soul/psych funk, afro-funk)

Helix The Space Cat (future hip-hop)

Roscillator (electronica)

DJing in the main room and visuals from:

Mark ‘Mack’ MacDonald (Sensateria/Klub Catusi)

Entry £4

http://pst-club.co.uk/2012/05/24/sensateria/

Thanks to all who came out to the Hare & Hounds last night for Harvey Milk. It was as crushing and heart wrenching as we’d hoped. Thanks also to Einstellung who made a welcome live return. Sorry to those who were hoping to catch Grimpen Mire, they unfortunately had to pull out of the show due to illness.

Some snaps below:

Capsule first coaxed Harvey Milk to the UK back in 2006, and at that year’s Supersonic Festival they made their debut UK appearance. We feel that its risks and ambition like this that makes Supersonic such a special event – and we really need your support to help us continue this. So we’ve set up a We Fund campaign so that people are able to pledge extra support to the festival. Go to our We Fund page to find out more and check out this year’s festival line up on the Supersonic website.

Our next show is with Unsane and Big Business on Wednesday 4th July at Rainbow Warehouse. Tickets are available via https://www.theticketsellers.co.uk