Venetian Snares
 Jega
 Shitmat
Chevron

Event Details:
Venetian Snares is nothing if not prolific, with releases across a swathe of underground imprints like History of the Future, Zhark and Hymen before finding his spiritual home on Planet Mu. Aaron Funk’s twisted vision renders labels like breakcoreâ or drill and bass hopelessly inadequate: Hyper-tensile jungle breakbeats twist into an impenetrable Piranesi-esque mockery of drum n bass pseudo-sophistication. With more hyper-complexity and time-signature shifts than a King Crimson LP, V-Snares doomrush break-tronixx impossibly pushes up the funk intensity into the red. His latest album Huge Cylinder Box Unfoldingâ has just been released on Planet Mu, and is a fine example of his caustic nervous-tic death-funk!!

Jega’s melodically inclined post-rave hardcore first came to light across two ultra-limited EP’s on Manchester’s influential Skam label. Picked up early on by Planet Mu, Jega released his classic LP Geometry in ’98. Dylan Nathan’s sound has evolved and mutated, encompassing stark digital soundscapes, abrasive splatter-breaks, glacial techno and cold, fractured melodies.

Datach’I is one Joseph Fraioli, hailing from New York. He’s had a whole bunch of releases on the Caipirinha and Klangkrieg labels (the latter with Tigerbeat 6s Com.A). His digital sound-world explores realms from the outer limits of glitch abstraction to hyper-complex beat constructions, with fragmented barbs of melody on the fringes of perception.

Brighton’s Shitmat will mash up the dance in fine style with his unique brand of attention-deficit disorder rave-core. His releases so far on Planet Mu have included the full length rungleclaat amen-jungalist overload of KillaBabylonKutz, and the super-dumb gabber-tekno 7 Shopliftin Gabba, which has the dubious honour of being the only record ever to collide ragga-jungle, gabber, bagpipes and The Ramones. Gabba! Gabba! We Accept You!
for further info check out http://www.planet-mu.com/.

SOME GIRLS (members of The Locust, Swing Kids, The Crimson
Curse) DAS OATH (transatlantic feedback, distortion and grindcore
drumming) CALVADOS BEAM TRIO

Event Details:
Some Girls have managed to
turn the hardcore scene on edge in these two short years since they
started. Starting merely as a loud crash and some simple ideas,
they’ve progressed into a powerful blitzkrieg of a band. With
release of only two 7″ EP’s and a few legendary performances, Some
Girls have truly become headturners and groundbreakers within the
punk/harcore world.

Some Girls is comprised of a cast of members that includes Wes
Eisold (Give Up The Ghost, American Nightmare), Rob Moran
(Unbroken, OVer My Dead Body), and Justin Pearson (The Locust,
Swing Kids, Holy Molar) among their collective line-up. Each member
brings their own approach and past musical history to the fold
creating Some Girls unique personality. A character that reeks of
the punk days of old while conjuring the raw musical urgency and
poetic prowess of the members’ previous artistic accomplishments.
for further info on Some Girls check www.threeoneG.com video clip
For info on Das Oath
www.das-oath.com/.

for further info on Some Girls check

      www.threeoneG.com

PELICAN (USA – Hydra Head masters of instro-metal)
JESU (new band of Godflesh mastermind Justin Broadrick)
DEADSUNRISING (West Brom mania

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. Channeling the seasonal progressions of various far-flung landscapes, the sounds of Pelican are easily adaptable to both the active and passive listening experience, but their harmonic minutiae are best appreciated in a high-volume stereophonic headphone scenario. Successor to the critically acclaimed Untitled EP, Pelican’s debut full-length is a cyclical riptide of major-chord mastery and low-end triumph against which one can only abdicate any and all tendencies to resist total immersion.

 Pelican’s seemingly sudden arrival on the Windy City’s (and now the world’s) underground circuit was in fact a deliberate agenda shift propagated by Laurent Lebec (guitar), Trevor de Brauw (guitar), and Larry Herweg (drums), then three-quarters of the relatively bizarre and deafening grind band Tusk (for further listening, see Tusk’s Get Ready on HeWhoCorruptsInc). With the addition of Larry’s younger brother Bryan on bass, Pelican’s imposing musical quadrangle was complete. The appearance of a four-song demo, recorded and mixed for a mere $300, followed. Like a large web-footed seabird with a long straight bill from which hangs a distensible pouch of skin for catching and holding fish, Hydra Head Records swooped down from on high to re-issue said demo as Pelican’s widely-lauded Untitled EP.

Within the year (that’d be this one), Pelican would become an integral component in the hugely successful and occasionally misunderstood Champions Of Sound tour, in conjunction with fellow Hydra Head and Tortuga heavyweights Harkonen, Scissorfight, The Austerity Program, Old Man Gloom, and 5ive.

http://www.hydrahead.com/pelican/

thursday 22nd
Q AND NOT U (dischord) . BULLET UNION . NOISE NOISE ALLORE

friday 23rd July
capsule + HOUSE OF GOD
room 1::
LUKE VIBERT (WagonChrist – Rephlex/Warp/Ninja Tune)
CYLOB(live – Rephlex). DJ X
room 2::
NEIL LANDSTRUMM (Tresor/Scandinavia Records)
SIR REAL . PAUL DAMAGE . HARVEY LANE
room 3::
DJ DICK (Different Drummer) . DR.LIES . CAPSULE GIRLS

saturday 24th July
3 stages with live sonic/visual performances from::
SENOR COCONUT + HIS ORCHESTRA
SPEKTRUM (Playhouse) . ZONGAMIN (XL recording)
DJ SCUD (Ambush) . PANACEA (Position-Chrome) .
CHRIS CLARK (Warp) . BRITISH MURDER BOYS (SURGEON + REGIS) CHRIST .
PANIC DHH (DHR) . KREEPA VS BLACK GALAXY .
WARD (Static Caravan). PCM . VD_MOTH . FAST LADY (v/vm records)
TEAM SHADETEK (Warp) . MIKE IN MONO . MIDAIRCONDO (Type)
BERG SANS NIPPLE (Prohibited) . PEMALAS (Experimental
Seafood)
PIRATEHAIRWAVES + DOTB + ESQUILAX .
TERROR BYTE + JADE ONE (Fuckinghardtechno)

film programme:: 7 inch cinema
exhibitions by::
beat13 . the out crowd . sonic arts network:: Pete Batchelor
Prime Objective Lomo Show . otonashi & Meisai @ No Name
record + food stalls . shops . flea market . cake
vive cuervo tequilla cocktail bar

“The Supersonic festival at the Custard Factory was one of the most
ambitious and eclectic I have ever had the pleasure of playing at
in the UK. The only thing that I know of that compares would be
Sonar in Barcelona for diversity, setting, presentation and sheer
love of music.”
Strictly Kev – DJ FOOD

Last years festival included performance from :


COIL . DJ FOOD . LCD SOUND SYSTEM . THE BUG .
V/VM . ZX SPECTRUM ORCHESTRA . PRAM . DJ FOOD . PCM .
TO NAME BUT A
FEW

About the companies going

Capsule & Supersonic
Capsule provides a space for experimentation within the realms of contemporary culture. In 1999, these Birmingham-based promoters opened up a unique project space for creative action, through the curation, promotion and presentation of audio and visual work. Their annual Supersonic festival is an eclectic playground, where emergent artists mingle with established and world-renowned practitioners. Supersonic 04 takes place on 23rd & 24th of July, and features Senor Coconut & His Orchestra, Zongamin, Spektrum & a newly-commissioned piece by Surgeon/Regis.
www.capsule.org.uk

Beat 13
For the last five years, Matt Watkins has combined video, print and web design, mixing music, artwork and animations. Beat 13 acts as a collective forum for experimentation, operating out of its T-shirt and print shop in Birmingham’s Custard Factory complex. Matt has designed the artwork for the compilation cd and for the logo for this years Supersonic Festival.
www.beat13.co.uk

Different Drummer/Leftfoot
Different Drummer was created in 1992 by Richard ‘DJ Dick’ Whittingham and Glyn ‘Bigga’ Bush, releasing discs by Rockers Hi-Fi, Mighty Math, International Observer, G-Corp and Noiseshaper. Recent signings Dollboy & Momma Gravy have imminent album releases scheduled. Different Drummer’s regular Leftfoot club night plays host to Gilles Peterson, Kruder & Dorfmeister, Jazzanova, Mr Scruff, Fila Brazilia, Grand Central, Roots Manuva, Carl Craig and Ty. There are also monthly Leftfoot nights in Paris, Nottingham and Croatia.
www.diffdrum.co.uk

Experimental Seafood Records
Label head Lee Howard likes to view his output as ‘the lowest form of entertainment’. Experimental Seafood Records is a micro-label set up to promote and release works from some of Birmingham’s most overlooked and shunned artists. Specialising in the darker side of electronics, field recordings, sound art, electro-acoustics and spoken word, ESR has a militant view that exclusivity and design are just as important as the music itself. Their 7″ and 12″ singles arrive in deluxe gatefold packs, and have included phials of blood, strangely smelling sleeves and discs that are enclosed in wooden boxes, making them almost impossible to play. Releases often have ridiculously limited runs, and are frequently hand-crafted.
www.experimentalseafood.com

[k]rack-troni[k]
Birmingham-based producers Sir Real and 8-Bit Apocalypse launched [k]rack-troni[k] in the year 2000, dedicating themselves to the release of innovative and dynamic electro/breaks records that feed the head as well as crush the floor. Both are residents at the infamous House Of God in Birmingham, which has now been active for eleven years, making it the longest-running club night in the Midlands. 2004 sees the start of a new distribution deal with Veto Music.
www.kracktronik.co.uk

7 Inch Cinema
Freeing film from its earthly shackles, 7 Inch Cinema places the emphasis on short durations, experimental approaches and multi-stylistic mash-ups. They offer images that can’t be viewed elsewhere, in the places we’d least expect to find them. 7 Inch encourage submissions of visual work for their regular evenings at The Rainbow public house in Birmingham, and are currently developing plans for a tour and festival.
www.7inch.org.uk

Static Caravan
Static Caravan has been leading the way in non-commercial electronica formats since 1998. Head honcho Geoff Dolman has a special love for the 7″ vinyl single, and a deliberate predilection for winkling out undiscovered talent, often allowing his proteges to move on towards bigger labels. This leaves him free to pursue innovation and surprise, always taking the unfamiliar alleyway. He isn’t overly interested in MP3s…
www.staticcaravan.org

Type
John Twells and Stefan Lewandowski’s Type specialises in electronic, soundscape and cinematic music from around the world. Although based in the UK, Type artists are drawn from a community of musicians, and are variously located in Sweden, Norway, France, North America, Japan and England. Twells records material as Xela and collaborates with Gabriel Morley as Yasume. Lewandowski records as Aeiou, and handles all of Type’s graphics, photography, sleeve art and video pieces. The label believes that electronica needs emotional individuality.
www.typerecords.com

other people from Birmingham going to sonar this year include:
blowback magazine
Ideas Factory West Midlands
Jigsaw Music

MARC ALMOND*
LYDIA LUNCH
NOXAGT ( load records from Norway)
SELFISH CUNT
BARRY 7 (dj set) djs/films

Event Details:

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, written a caustically funny autobigraphy, and tonight he’ll be bringing a touch of class to the Medicine Bar.

for further info on marc almond www.marcalmond.co.uk.

www.lydialunch.org/

LYDIA LUNCH’s uncompromising, multi-faceted vision is on full display elsewhere at Fierce! festival . For this one-off gig in the Custard Factory Theatre she’ll be joined onstage by old friends EUGENE AND NIKO from OXBOW, according to Vice magazine “the greatest art rock band in the world.” Eugene Robinson and Niko Wenner, the singer/lyricist and songwriter/architect of OXBOW’s mean mania, make the making of OXBOW music a thing of rarefied beauty using little more than the rudiments of guitar and voice for the non-electrical rendering of a terror no less absolute because of a lack of volume. From Milan to London to Berlin, 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.
A must see, hear, now.

www.noxagt.com

NOXAGT hail from the same Load Records stable as Lightning Bolt and Pink and Brown, and produce a similarly stripped-down, apocalyptic sound with an extra edge given by heavy-duty viola. This is how Norway rocks.

“Selfish Cunt are going to annoy you. Not just because Dalston-dwelling Martin Tomlinson and Patrick Constable possess the painfully studied air of dandyish Shoreditch Twats desperately trying to shock-rock their way to winning the Turner Prize. And not just because The Guardian recently stuck them on a list of Britain’s Top 40 bands after only about 12 London hipsters with asymmetrical Hoxton haircuts had seen them play. But mainly because, beyond any whiff of insider hype and media manipulation, the duo’s debut single is unexpectedly very good indeed. Annoyingly good, in fact.” nme
for further info www.horsegluerecords.com/.

“Selfish Cunt are going to annoy you. Not just because Dalston-dwelling Martin Tomlinson and Patrick Constable possess the painfully studied air of dandyish Shoreditch Twats desperately trying to shock-rock their way to winning the Turner Prize. And not just because The Guardian recently stuck them on a list of Britain’s Top 40 bands after only about 12 London hipsters with asymmetrical Hoxton haircuts had seen them play. But mainly because, beyond any whiff of insider hype and media manipulation, the duo’s debut single is unexpectedly very good indeed. Annoyingly good, in fact.” nme
for further info www.horsegluerecords.com/.

Kid 606
Knifehandchop
Irritant + Jade One

 
Live performance from one of the most respected figures in modern electronic music bringing you ragga-junglist anthems, with thunderous beats and booming basslines joined by extreme boy mentalist supreme from Canada to mash up the party. Redefining proto-gabba and hardcore still further by combining helium voices and 180 bpms + two emergent artists from Birminghams fuckinghardtechno.co.uk

KID606
It has become increasingly difficult over the last few years to imagine the electronic music landscape without having to make room for Miguel Depedro, a.k.a. kid606. Only twenty-four years old, he has already released three full-length studio albums, several radically divergent remix albums, a handful of split albums, countless singles, as well as making a number of compilation appearances and being approached for remixes on a regular basis.

From his now legendary reworking of N.W.A.’s Straight Outta Compton (V/VM/Tigerbeat6) to his foray into minimal techno with P.S. I Love You (Mille Plateaux), through to his highly praised mash-up full-length, The Action Packed Mentallist Brings You the Fucking Jams (Violent Turd), the kid has consistently sabotaged categorization of his work by remaining true to its core; his violence is against sound, against the sounds of comfort, against the sounds listeners expect.

for further info on kid606 + knifehandchop check
www.tigerbeat6.com

KNIFEHANDCHOP
Knifehandchop is Billy Pollard, a 22-year-old culture junkie musician from
Toronto who has been producing devastating electronic dancefloor anthems for the last 4 years on the seminal Irritant and Tigerbeat6 labels.”Rockstopper” serves as a both showcase of what Knifehandchop has done so far, and a definitive statement of what is capable of; headed as it is into totally new musical directions. The tracks vary from the most mental mind-blowing gabber to laidback hiphop to sentimental vocal electro to dancehall riddims.

JADE ONE + IRRITANT
Fucking Hard Techno is an independent audio research / multimedia arts organisation based in Birmingham, created to act as a platform to promote the range of work they produce as a collective. It represents a community of art terrorists intent on assualting all medium. The art reflects their need to experiment, to innovate through the destruction of preconceived convention and opinion to create something new.

www.fuckinghardtechno.co.uk/

AS PART OF THE FEED
FESTIVAL:

MERZBOW (JAPAN)
COM.A (JAPAN TIGERBEAT RECORDS)
CEEPHAX . DJ SHITMAT (PLANET MU) . DJ X
KAFFE MATTEWS + RIZ MASTEN
films from SKAM/COLDCUT/MILLE
PLATEAUX