Thanks to everyone that came along to this years Supersonic Festival, particularly a huge amount of gratitude to our volunteers, crew & to all the artists that were involved and of course our wonderful audience – it was a truly special weekend, with a great atmosphere.
Due to a lack of sleep over the last few days – we are officially off line – back soon.
In the meantime please feel free to upload your photos to our Flickr group
We know that people who come to SUPERSONIC are a knowledgeable and opinionated lot so we’d like to ask for your assistance to develop and improve the next festival by answering a few questions about you and your experience. This should take no more than 6 minutes of your time, and your feedback is greatly appreciated.
Your answers here will aid us in keeping costs down and in making sure new and interesting artists will keep coming to the festival – so your input really does matter in making SUPERSONIC work.
A sunny Supersonic Saturday kicked off with the amazing Rose Kemp. Beautiful folky vocals with dirgy, dark overtones. Haunting and mesmerising. Nisennemondai were a great hit, drawing in the crowds and getting everyone boogieing to their energetic layered math rock. Their sound lured many a resting volunteer out of the production office to watch.
From early Saturday morning festival goers were beavering away with soldering irons and circuits at VIVID under the guidance of John Richards making a DIY electronic instrument. Last night the group performed with the instruments they made performing under the name of John Richards & The Dirty Electronic Ensemble. John Richards conducting the twenty-five strong ensemble.
Monotonix ended the night in spectacular fashion, being held aloft by the crowd.
And now onto Sunday! Head of David, Caribou, Earthless, Arbouretum, The Memory Band and more! The whole team are very excited about Goblin playing tonight. We heard them sound checking this morning and they sounded amazing!
Tickets are still available from 2pm on the door. For the latest news check out the festival twitter account here.
Last night Supersonic started with the Custard Factory packed to the rafters, the evening was sold out with a crowd waiting to check out Sunn O))), Kylie Minoise, Scorn, PCM, Taint and Venetian Snares amongst others.
PCM got everyone dancing, their dark brand of drum n bass drawing in the crowds.
Kylie Minoise startled the crowd by writhing around on the floor generally causing mayhem.
The whole of the Custard Factory’s inner sanctum was enveloped in dry ice for a spectacular performance from Sunn O))). The set featured Stephen O’Malley and Greg Anderson only and music exclusively from GrimmRobe demos.
Finishing the night, Venetian Snares intense set sent everyone into a frenzy of dancing,‘a liquidiser of limbs’. The perfect end to the first night of the festival and there are two more days to go!
Lisa’s asked me to run the @supersonicfest Twitter account over the weekend, which fits rather well as I’ve been thinking about how it might be used at the festival since last February. Here’s how I hope it’s going to work.
Firstly I’m going to try and tap into the backstage comms and relay any useful info, newswire-style. Schedule changes, late runnings, surprise guests, that sort of thing. It won’t be perfect but I’ll do my best.
The most obvious thing is changes to the schedule. There’s nothing more annoying than leaving one stage in time to catch the official start of a set on another only to discover the band is still setting up. So if you’re about to leave Thorr’s Hammer at 11.30 you can check the Twitter to see if Zu are on time or not without losing your spot at the front.
But that’s not the most useful way to use this thing. Since Twitter is fairly well adopted right now I’m assuming a fair few of you will be tweeting away, telling your friends what the good stuff is and so on. I’ll be watching you doing that. To bring stuff to my attention immediately include @supersonicfest in the message. But if you just mention the word “supersonic” I’ll still pick up on it in amongst the jet engines and Oasis nonsense. The stuff I think is of interest to all will then be retweeted through the @supersonicfest account.
So if you’re somehow at a loose end check into @supersonicfest and you’ll soon be back on track. (If you’re phone isn’t all fancy and that we’re going to whack a computer monitor in a window somewhere – more on that later).
This won’t be perfect. It’s a festival and the serendipitous chaos is what makes it special. And by the time I iron out the kinks and figure out the best ways to do things it’ll be Sunday evening. But hopefully we can use this to fill in some gaps and turn some of those “wish I’d seen it” into “caught the end of it”.
If you’ve got any thoughts or ideas on how this might be useful to you, let me know in the comments. Otherwise, see you Friday!
As well as scores of bands playing over the Supersonic weekend, there will be many filmic delights to choose from. This year Film Ficcones return with Pram to Supersonic. Pram, Birmingham’s own, will provide a sinister cinematic soundtrack to Film Ficciones 16mm projections for a special performance.
Eagle and Feather will present Kipple, cleverly edited footage of detritus of modern living amassed through visits to charity shops and jumble sales. Kipple is a term used by Philip K Dick in his book ‘Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?’ to refer to ‘unwanted or useless junk that tends to reproduce itself’. Eagle and Feather have applied this to their video mashups.
There will be a programme of label shorts from Secretly Canadian and Jagjaguwar including Black Mountain, Phosphorescent and Parts & Labor. Screenings will also include 65 Days of Static ‘Road Movie’, a documentary of a US tour featuring interviews, live performances and footage from dates with the Cure.
By Anabel
Tickets for Supersonic Festival are available from:www.theticketsellers.co.uk 24 hr order line – 0844 870 0000 – Calls cost max 5p per min from BT landline
There is a strong metal presence at this year’s festival as Supersonic embraces Birmingham’s musical heritage.
Home of Metal is a project that has been raising the profile of the West Midlands region as the birthplace of Heavy Metal, citing Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, Judas Priest, Napalm Death and Godflesh as key players within this genre who all came out the area.
Festival goers will witness the torturous Japanese ‘funeral doom’ band Corrupted who have embraced their heavy metal influence while twisting the genre to a parallel universe where guttural roars follow extensive harp pieces and atmospheric doom accompanies all out head banging sludge. It is fitting that the first UK show for this now cult band will be in the place where Black Sabbath originally discovered their dark ominous sound which still resonates in the haunting heaviness of Corrupted.
The reformation of Head of David is another reminder of the diverse interpretations that can be born out of Heavy Metal. This Black Country band were one of the first industrial metal bands, the tempo is slowed down and distorted. They create a heavy haze that subsequently poured into the sounds of Godflesh and Ministry.
Ex Napalm Death drummer Mick Harris will be playing the festival as industrial dub act Scorn. The sounds of Scorn take those dark, heavy sounds of Heavy Metal and strip them bare, creating a uniquely mucky minimal sound.
The influence of West Midlands’ Heavy Metal can be made out through the thrashing and pummelling of Kylie Minoise. His hectic bursts of noise a reminder of the early Napalm Death tracks that pound into submission. Kylie Minoise’s reinterpretation of the one second long Napalm Death track ‘You Suffer’ was released in 2007 – it’s over an hour long.
Other Heavy Metal influenced performances at Supersonic 2009 will include grunge doom from Thorr’s Hammer, thrashcore from The Accused, power grind from Iron Lung and a wealth of bands embracing dark, psychedelic and experimental sounds – whether they linger gloomily for eternity or smash into you briefly as a burst of noise.
In addition to these crushing sounds, a number of Home of Metal events will be taking place over the weekend. Catch Kerrang! Radio DJ Johnny Doom in discussion with Greg Anderson and Stephen O’Malley of Sunn0))), discussing the influence of West Midlands’ Heavy Metal. Dr Niall Scott of the University of Central Lancashire will be lecturing on the ‘monstrous male figure’ with Heavy Metal and their will be a screening of the Vice film ‘True Norwegian Black Metal’.
We’re delighted to confirm that MARNIE STERN will be performing at this years Supersonic Festival in July – New York native Marnie is described as a Guitar Hero showdown between Don Caballero, Hella and … Van Halen www.myspace.com/marniestern1
Confirmed line up: Friday: Army Of Flying Robots / Atomized / Drum Eyes / Kylie Minoise / PCM / Scorn / Taint / Venetian Snares
Saturday: Bobby Previte / Corrupted / Diaganol / Flower/Corsano Duo / Growing / Iron Lung / Kim Hiorthoy / Light Trap / Marnie Stern / Master Musicians Of Bukkake / Monotonix / Nisenenmondai / Remember Remember / Rose Kemp / Skullflower / Tartufi / The Accused / Thought Forms / Thorr’s Hammer / Tweak Bird / Zu
Sunday: 65 Days Of Static / Arbouretum / Caribou / Chris Herbert / Earthless / Goblin / Head Of David / Jarboe / Khyam Allami / Nancy Wallace / Pontiak / Pram / Pre / Theo / The Memory Band / ZzZ
We are delighted to add a few more extraordinary acts to perform at this years Supersonic Festival, including Japanese all girl band NISSENMONDAI, a 10 piece collaborative project in the form of DRUMIZE (feat. DJ SCOTCH EGG + ex members of the BOREDOMS + TRENCHER), TWEAK BIRD a brother duo who produce heavy experimental prog and psych-infused rock (a definite one for fans of the MELVINS), LIGHT TRAP which is the latest project of Nicholas Bullen (original member of Napalm Death + Scorn) in collaboration with none other than Johnny Doom and the drummer from Una Corda.
Full line up: Head Of David (first show in 23 years) / 65 Days of Static / The Accused / Arbouretum / Atomized/ Bobby Previte / Caribou / Corrupted / Chris Herbert / Diagonal /Drumize / Earthless /Flower Corsano Duo / Goblin / Growing / Iron Lung / Jarboe / Khyam Allami / Kim Hiorthøy / Kylie Minoise / Light Trap / Master Musicians Of Bukkake/ Monotonix / Nancy Wallace / Nissenmondai / Pontiak / Pram / PRE / Remember Remember/ Rose Kemp/ Scorn / Skullflower/ Taint / Theo / Thorr‚s Hammer / Tweak Bird / Venetian Snares / Zu / ZzZ
We are delighted to add a few more extraordinary acts to perform at this years Supersonic Festival, including Japanese all girl band NISSENMONDAI, a 10 piece collaborative project in the form of