Curated and produced by NO-FI and [NO.SIGNAL] supported by The Wire magazine APPROXIMATELY INFINITE UNIVERSE – A CARAVAN OF RAW SOUND MAGIC FROM FINLAND AND THE US.

Featuring special commissions and unique collaborations from some of the most innovative and exciting acts of Finland’s underground with the superb ISLAJA, the multi-layered KEMIALLISET YSTÄVÄT, the drones of ES and the noise of TOMUNTONTTU (Jan Anderzén) – most represented by the influential and exploratory label FONAL. Each will musically entangle themselves amongst an uncompromising host of Americans, including the home-recorded acid folk of Fursaxa; the MV & EE member SAMARA LUBELSKI, the ‘Terry Riley-fused with Kate Bush’ impossibility of Axolotl, the ‘coal-powered spacecraft from some steampunk parallel universe’ that is BLEVIN BLECTUM and the noise duo from SKATERS.

Each performance a unique and brand new collaboration, each of the acts features a combination of Finnish artists from FONAL, who have invited a US counterpart to collaborate on a composition, highlighting the parallels in strands of the recent evolving trend of ‘weird/avant folk’ between the US West coast and Finland’s northern communities.

The performances will be made of material composed in the months leading up to the tour and worked in 2 days rehearsal. The concerts will take the form of two acts with the 4 groupings rotating during each act.

ES (FI)
ES is the solo recording name of Fonal boss Sami Sänpäkkilä – tagged as ‘Experimental Songcycles’ by The Wire’s David Keenan – and one of the main figures in contemporary Finnish free folk mouvement. Sami is not only a musician but also a renowned filmaker.

FURSAXA (US)
Tara Burke of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania employs voice, guitar, organ, dulcimer, accordion, Casio and more to create her home-recorded acid folk as Fursaxa. Her debut album Mandrake was produced, engineered, and released in Japan by none other than Kawabata Makoto of Acid Mothers Temple.

ISLAJA (FI)
Islaja is Merja Kokkonen, a young visual artist and musician based in Helsinki, Finland. She has discretely become one of the few figures hiding behind the recent fad of “folk weirdness” whilst being part of a somehow communal move of a “Finnish psychedelia” that has spread its wings within the underground sounds over the last two years.

SAMARA LUBELSKI (US)
Samara is a native New Yorker who grew up in the haze of artist infestation of Soho. Through the time of playing in various groups she has compiled an impressive resume that covers myriad of genres such as her work with the avant/psych/folk outfit of Hall Of Fame into the lair of those bohemian German musos Metabolismus and onto the indie rock interpretations of The Sonora Pine with some serious treks into the world of The Tower Recordings and off world with Jackie O Motherfucker, to name just a few.

BLEVIN BLECTUM (US)
Blevin Blectum is an electronic musician. Recently relocated from the industrial armpit of Oakland, California, to the humid lovecraftian greenery of Providence, Rhode Island, Blevin releases her fourth solo album, GULAR FLUTTER, on an unsuspecting public via the AAGOO label (New York). Blevin is one half of the recently reformed and reunited groundbreaking digital duo Blectum From Blechdom, recipients of the 2001 Ars Electronica Award of Distinction in Digital Musics.

KEMIALLISET YSTÄVÄT (FI)
The name of a recording project of musician Jan Anderzén of Tampere, Finland. Anderzén began recording under the name in 1995 and although he has enlisted numerous musicians over the years, most Kemialliset Ystävät recordings are solo productions. Often labeled as psych folk, his recordings have included such diverse instruments as detuned guitars, mandolins, balalaikas, toys, hand percussion, and samples from recordings by Sun Ra, Karlheinz Stockhausen and Vibracathedral Orchestra.

AXOLOTL (US)
Axolotl is Karl Bauer, classically-trained violinist and a dedicated student of gnosticism, alchemy, astrology, and certain other materialist tendencies in psychology and philosophy. Bauer belongs to a small but potent association of young musicians, who draw upon the gestural economy and textural range of minimalism, and the visceral force of noise, while eschewing fashionable prohibitions against musicality, raw beauty, and thematic complexity.

TOMUTONTTU (FI)
The visual artist and musician Jan Anderzén (1978) is one of the central figures of the Finnish underground, and his band Kemialliset ystävät has gained international popularity among fans of experimental and psychedelic music.

SKATERS (US)
“Staggering low-grade psychedelic murk and splintered free jazz soul” says David Keenan (The Wire). The skaters are from southern California and consist of Spencer Clark and James Ferraro who met in 2002. The duo say that the substance of their music is defined by “the interplay of ideas and the transformation of themselves into characters while playing and while living and using the inner dialogue that comes with cognizing the symbols of the outside world as a ground for the music to stand”. The music for them becomes deeply psychological because they experience “hallucinogenic sensations” while playing. The “thing” they think is a phenomenon can only be experienced through playing.

“Thunder Pop.” Sure, this sound was hinted at by TORCHE singer/guitarist/songwriter Steve Brooks’ former group Floor, founded by the mighty Black Sabbath and nearly accomplished by mainstreamers Queens of the Stone Age… but such truly anthemic, triumphant and absolutely massive heavy rock has never been so downright catchy! The mind-rupturing debut album by the Miami, FL quartet—which also features former Floor guitarist Juan Montoya (who, along with Brooks, also played in the mighty Cavity), drummer Rick Smith (ex-Tyranny Of Shaw) and bassist Jon Nuñez—echoes the scooped-EQ tones (all lows and highs with precious little mid-range) of the Melvins classic Ozma, the infectious riff-rock of Nirvana’s Bleach and glissando multi-part harmonies of classic Beach Boys.

TORCHE’s gloriously sung, harmonized and soaring vocal arrangements accompanying the most monolithic riffs of modern times, is truly a massive sound made all the more devastating by the album’s masterful production. The lumbering sludge of opener “Charge of the Brown Recluse” heralds the coming rockpocalypse of raging tracks like the behemoth chamber pop of “Mentor” and the head-bobbing sliding harmonic guitar lines of “Rock It.” Chiming hook-laden tunes like “Fire” and “Erase” are streamlined thunder pop chunks that get right to the point and self-immolate in just over two minutes.

After Floor, er, collapsed in June 2004, Brooks and Montoya immediately started thinking up plans for a new band that would continue where their former group left off. Robotic Empire label founder (and huge Floor fan) Andy Low suggested that the new band work with his friend, Smith on drums. The lineup soon solidified with Nuñez, one of Smith’s long-time friends. TORCHE had ignited.

http://www.myspace.com/torche

Unhindered by the impositions of the vocal yoke, Chicago instro-sorcerers Pelican transcend the limits of time and space to expound upon the stunning finesse and painstaking subtlety with which they command their already indelible sonic signature. Restoring instrumental composition to its former glory is no insignificant task, and to do so with such remarkable authority and presence is a testament to the sheer will and unmitigated talent of Pelican’s membership. Levying cinematic melody upon glacial heaviness, they achieve the sort of inevitability usually reserved for weather systems and natural disasters.
http://www.hydrahead.com/pelican/

Japanese psychedelic band founded in 1995 by members of the Acid Mothers Temple soul-collective. The band is led by guitarist Kawabata Makoto and early in their career featured many musicians but by 2004 the line-up had coalesced with 4 core members and frequent vocal guests.

The band have a reputation for phenomenal live shows and releasing frequent albums on a number of international record labels, as well as the Acid Mothers Temple family record label which was established in 1998 to document the activities of the whole collective.
http://www.myspace.com/acidmotherstemple

Nisennenmondai (Smalltown Supersound / Japan)
Imagine an insane birthday party with Sun City Girls, Keiji Haino and Mika Miko all invited, things are gonna go volcanic, and that’s where Nisennenmondai come in! Of all the noisy girl groups of Kansai, Tokyo’s Nisennenmondai – their name translates as ‘Year 2000 problem’, a reference to the millenial computer bug – honestly! – are at once the most intense and hypnotic band to run out of the scene. Himeno Sayaka (drums), Zaikawa Yuri (bass) and Takada Masako (guitar) met, of all places, at the same after school music club at university in Tokyo and quickly jumped into band formation, self-releasing two EPs with short shrift before touring Japan alongside the likes of Death Sentence: Panda!, OOIOO, Lightning Bolt, Hella, Oshiri Penpenz, and Afrirampo. Their pulsing rhythm section and metallic overtoned guitar sound something like a heathen and tranced-out amalgamation of Boredoms, Neu!, Ruins and Leopard Leg – apt comparisons considering their group ensemble ethic and circular pattern performance setup. Nisennenmondai are as thrilling as they convulsive. Now don’t forget to blow out the candles!
www.myspace.com/nisennenmondai

Integra 2008
International Festival & Conference
Fusing music and technology

Capsule present in collaboration with Integra:
The Bays with John Metcalfe and live ensemble.
The Bays incorporate a classical ensemble into their improvised electronic performance, using a unique system of real-time music scoring devised by The Bays and projected for the audience to see as well as hear.

The Bays do not believe in rules. The Bays do not make records. They do not rehearse or prepare their entirely improvised live performances. The style of their music ranges from ambient electronica to thundering Drum and Bass, touching all points in between. The four-piece group have taken this project all across the world, performing on massive international stages, in crowded and cramped club rooms, at outdoor festivals, in theatres and even boats. Each performance is new, each idea unprecedented, each appearance a particular adjustment to fit the demands of venue and crowd.

Now, in keeping with this philosophy of uncompromising evolution, for the Integra festival in Birmingham, The Bays have devised a unique system combining computer software and old-fashioned human communication to incorporate an orchestral ensemble. With a classical ensemble, and a team of guest composers led by John Metcalfe, The Bays will combine live electronica and classical ensemble playing in an entirely improvised performance.

Forget what you think “live music” actually means. This music will be created on the spot, in front of the audience, never to be played, heard or experienced the same way again
http://www.thebays.com/

BIT20 Ensemble
Live electronics: Chris McClelland, Sonic Arts Research Centre, Belfast
A musician-led ensemble from Bergen Norway will premier a new mixed-media work by Michele Tadini, commissioned specially for the festival, plus works by Schaathun and Hellstenius.
http://www.bit20ensemble.no/

www.integralive.org
festival runs from the 5th June – 7th June 2008
Integra, a 3-year project led by the Birmingham Conservatoire in the UK and part financed by Culture 2000. To develop a new software environment to make music with live electronics, modernising works that use old technology.
We are delighted that the closing Integra 2008 Festival & Conference will be held in Birmingham. Building on the work of the project, the Festival will bring to Birmingham the five participating ensembles for an unprecedented 3-day perspective on European live electronic music, with a special focus on mixed-media performances. The Conference aims to spark a discussion around technology and music bringing together artistic promoters and decision makers, researchers, composers and performers. It is a rare occasion to debate across different domains the challenges and opportunities new technologies bring to music, and how to solve the existing tensions between musicians and technology.

Capsule present as part of Fierce an evening of the occult with visionary rock musician and musicologist, hip archaeologist and one-time front man of the Teardrop Explodes JULIAN COPE
followed by a screening of cult film Häxan, Witch Craft through The Ages (1922, dir. Benjamin Christensen, Swedish/Danish) accompanied by a live sound track by art house electronix outfit Bronnt Industries Kapital (Static Caravan/Warp).

” A weird and rather wonderful brew of fiction, documentary and animation” Time Out

Cope will present 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.

“I went from Odin to Christ via the various pagan pre-cursors of Christ. The very nice old guys at The British Museum in dicky-bows had been saying, “You’re not the normal kind of person we have here, but you do it the way you want.” So I did the lecture in full face-paint and five inch platform shoes, two nights, sold out. It was amazing!”

A truly stunning piece of cinema history, Häxan, directed by Benjamin Christensen, features grave robbing, torture, possessed nuns, baby sacrifices and an unforgettable depiction of a satanic sabbath. Bronnt’s soundtrack matches Christensen’s extraordinary depiction of historical witchcraft with a totally unique, otherworldly and constantly shifting musical landscape ranging from chilling electrical/concret passages to joyous electro-acoustic ensemble pieces.

www.headheritage.co.uk
www.silentagerecords.co.uk/bronnt
myfiercefestival.co.uk/
www.thsh.co.uk

Hardcore quartet Pissed Jeans’ rock is sourced in the early-80s loose-booty sludge of Flipper and Black Flag, the tightly wound treble-spray of late-80s/early-90s noise-rock such as Drunks With Guns and the Jesus Lizard. Whereas Drunks With Guns and Flipper often dealt with chemical-induced nihilism in their lyrics, Pissed Jeans rally against bad weather and sing about overeating to deal with emotions. They’re human. They will appeal to anyone who’s ever crapped their pants and can admit it. Having a sense of shame is critical in appreciation of shit like this.

www.myspace.com/pissedjeans

Spewed up from the murky depths of Birmingham at some point in mid 2006, Bee Stung Lips is a four-headed hideous beast, with blood-shot eyes and tentacles stretching far back into the Midlands music scene.
Chewing on notes from The Jesus Lizard, Hot Snakes and Oxbow, and then spitting them back out, with additional nods to literary giants such as Charles Bukowski and John Fante, they create a provocative mixture of wilfully abrasive noise and viscera-shredding rock ‘n’ roll. Howling, anguished, and convulsive vocals tussle with rapid-fire drums, riotous guitar and blistering bass lines, before collapsing into a chaotic heap, breathless and foaming at the mouth.
Fiercely intelligent, yet unashamedly reckless, Bee Stung Lips possess an irrepressible addictive fury along with an abundance of technical aplomb. Rapidly garnering a sizeable reputation for their infamous live performances.

http://www.myspace.com/beestunglips1

Doom Patrol are 2 non-hardcore punk kids playing hardcore punk, without the bullshit or posing. basically fast, loud and fun.
http://www.myspace.com/doompatroldoompatrol

Ethan Miller sprang into the underground rock world with his band COMETS ON FIRE. Comets quickly came to the forefront of what would come to be defined as “The New Weird America”, a movement that darkly combined elements of Folk, heavy psychedelia, free formed existentialism, and atonality. A joyful noise comprises a Comets show, with Miller’s vocals being driven through an echoplex and re-shaped at will by fellow member Noel Von Harmonson. While Comet’s chaotic wall of sound is a feat of architecture and a beloved aspect by the fans, Miller had another voice and musical path calling through the sonic maelstrom.

http://www.howlinrain.com/

Review on Drowned In Sound: http://drownedinsound.com/release/view/12947

Mills & Boon
Infamous locals channeling the spirit of Beefheart, creating their own ramshackle brand of rambling psych spazz folk.  They always deliver a stunning live performance that bristles with a chaotic excitement and a sense that anything could (and might) happen, these are the wonderful drunks of times gone by, instruments in hand entertaining anyone they encounter.
http://www.myspace.com/millsandboon