Highlights of the new Library of Birmingham’s four-month Discovery Season, which will run from the opening on Tuesday 3rd September until 31st December, are announced. Arts Council England support for the Discovery Season was confirmed earlier this year.

Taking its inspiration from the Library’s internationally-important archives and special collections, the Discovery Season will include:

Playground of Discovery – a specially-commissioned Cabinet of Curiosities created by multi-award- winning artist, Morag Myerscough, housing a rolling programme of creative residencies throughout the Season. Capsule are taking applications for the residency programme until Monday 29th April, learn more here. The Commentators from Stan’s Café, the Birmingham-based artists’ group, will be broadcasting from the Playground of Discovery, as the first of the creative residencies, in the opening week.

In a collaboration with Flatpack Festival, a weekend of cabaret and cinema to celebrate Birmingham’s long and colourful association with Early Cinema and the development of the Magic Lantern with a focus on the Library of Birmingham’s archive of 60,000 lantern slides dating from around 1890 to 1940

Theatre Jukebox by Stand + Stare

A trail of artworks will be situated across the building, each making reference to the Library’s rich collections and archives. To include Theatre Jukebox created by Stand + Stare using the Library’s Wingate Bett Transport Ticket collection, an arcade-style cabinet installation that plays stories instead of records housed on the Library’s fourth floor

The Library of Lost Books – an exhibition celebrating the history of the book, with related workshops, featuring contemporary artists and printmakers, inspired by and breathing new life into books that have reached the end of their natural lives

Carol Ann Duffy and Lionel Shriver will appear at October’s Birmingham Literature Festival (formerly the Birmingham Book Festival)

Reference Works, an exhibition of Birmingham’s largest ever photography commission which has seen four photographers – Michael Collins, Brian Griffin, Andrew Lacon and Stuart Whipps – create work in response to the building of the Library of Birmingham

Volume, the Birmingham Art, Book and Print Fair in December has been created as a unique event for the Discovery Season by bringing together existing organisations in collaboration (Writing West Midlands, Birmingham Zine Festival, An Endless Supply, BCU Typography Hub, Grand Union and Eastside Projects). Volume will open with a keynote speech from artist, musician and writer, Bill Drummond.

The Discovery Season is being produced on behalf of the Library of Birmingham by Capsule and is supported by Arts Council England.

The Season will throw a completely new light on the Library’s collections and bring to life the library’s stunning new spaces with installations, events, performances, workshops, and music and dance for every age and interest.

Robinson Crusoe, The Clever Cats & Co. (1881) London: Thomas Nelson and Sons. Parker Collection

The Library of Birmingham have been releasing images from the Parker Collection via their website and we must say, a lot of them are right up Capsule’s alley (animals in clothes you say?).

We’ve just announced a number of opportunities for artists to develop and exhibit work as part of the Library of Birmingham opening season. One opportunity is to develop a number of illustrative characters to be displayed in the Children’s Library. Artists might draw inspiration from the Parker Collection of Children’s Book and Games and can find more information via www.libraryofbirmingham.com/parkercollectiongallery

More information on this commission, as well as the Creative Residencies programme can be found via www.capsule.org.uk/project/library-of-birmingham-opening-season where you

can download the briefs and assessment criteria.

Sketched design by Studio Myerscough

We have announced two call outs for artists to produce exciting work for the Library of Birmingham opening season, curated by Capsule. We are looking for artists/organisations to take on week long residencies within an exciting space designed by Studio Myerscough (draft image above), and we will also commission an artist/illustrator to create new work to sit in the new Children’s Library.

See below for more information and details on how to apply. You can learn more about the opening season for this exciting new public space in Birmingham via www.capsule.org.uk/project/library-of-birmingham-opening-season

Children’s Library commission

Artwork: We require a series of illustrations – of characters and their environment – that will be produced as large-scale soft toys/furniture and as vinyl illustrations on specified walls and floor. It is expected that children will be able to develop their own narratives and play with the characters in both informal and workshop contexts.

Schools Workshops: Artists will be encouraged to research or test their ideas in consultation with local children through the Library of Birmingham’s established relationship with local schools (4 – 11 yrs). Where community engagement is not normally part of the artist’s practice, Capsule will work with them to realise appropriate workshops and activity, bringing in additional personnel as required.

Click through for further information, including how to apply, fee and criteria.

Creative Residencies

As part of the Discovery Season Capsule and Library of Birmingham are inviting artists, creative practitioners and arts organisations to propose ideas for week-long residencies in the ‘Playground of Discovery’: an exciting and dynamic structure designed by Studio Myerscough to be situated in the foyer.

Residencies will need to offer free drop-in activity for visitors to the Library of Birmingham around the central principle of Discovery. The structure will be able to accommodate between 10- 20 people. All residencies must engage with visitors to Library of Birmingham and offer opportunities for them to actively participate. Unless otherwise stated, you will be required to work with all ages.

Click through for further information, including how to apply, fee and criteria.

Deadline for both opportunities is 5pm on Monday 29^th April

Here’s how we chose to introduce Barn Owl to the uninitiated in the lead up to Supersonic Festival in 2011.

“Supersonic 2010 attendees will perhaps need no introduction to the stunning dust-trails of sound that San Franciscan duo Barn Owl create. The band were so well received that we just had to get them back for Supersonic 2011. In the past year, the praise for their mesmerising drones and layered feedback has slowly built up into a huge wall of superlatives. It’s taking all our strength here at Capsule to avoid waxing lyrical about “hauntingly beautiful sonic waterfalls” and the like! Rock-A-Rolla even went so far as to say that their 2010 album ‘Ancestral Star’ on Thrill Jockey was “the most significant experimental drone album since [SunnO)))’s] ‘Monoliths & Dimensions’”.

What you definitely get with Barn Owl is a hugely powerful immersive experience. Frequently playing in front of modified super 8 footage, the twin guitars of Evan Caminiti and Jon Porras intertwine instinctively, equal parts slow-burning twang and spaced-out feedback drone. It’s hard to stop those superlatives flowing. The band have just released a new EP ‘Shadowlands‘ that adds a devotional aspect reflective of artists like Popul Vuh (especially their soundtrack for the Werner Herzog film ‘Fitzcarraldo’) and Alice Coltrane, and their new full-length ‘Lost In The Glare‘ will be out on 13th September. (Free mp3 here.) Both Caminiti and Porras are solo artists releasing on labels like Root Strata and Three Lobed Recordings and Caminiti is also an established visual artist.”

They’re back in Birmingham on Saturday 27th April at St Paul’s Church with Grumbling Fur and Ex Easter Island Head. Tickets are available via www.theticketsellers.co.uk

More information on their Electric Totem site.

Barn Owl & Jefre Cantu-Ledesma Live At The Cube (Bristol) from Fluid Radio on Vimeo.

Barn Owl – Light from the Mesa from Thrill Jockey Records on Vimeo.

Ex Easter Island Head are a Liverpool based ensemble who usually perform as a trio but are known to expand to up to 30 players. An inventive and surprising group, their experimentation with rhythm and minimalism makes for a captivating live show. We’re thrilled that they’ll be performing at St Paul’s Church on Saturday 27th April, along with Barn Owl and Grumbling Fur. Tickets are available via theticketsellers.co.uk

“In the tradition of minimalist composers like Steve Reich and Rhys Chatham, Liverpool’s Ex-Easter Island Head draw a great deal of resonance from a stripped back set-up, consisting largely of guitars laid out horizontally and played as percussion instruments (hence the name of 2012’s Mallet Guitars Two). Their sound gradually ebbs and flows, building up to vast tropical storm clouds of rhythm and natural reverb.” The Quietus

Ex Easter

Island Head performing Mallet Guitars One:

At Supersonic 2012, audience members were able to take part in a free workshop with DIY cinema and film making collective Imperfect Cinema. The ‘Hailide Oxide’ workshop explored DIY film making techniques with a talk by Nicholas Bullen, participants were then able to gather footage using super 8mm cameras. This footage was processed and edited overnight and became the visuals for ab ever brutal performance by Drunk in Hell. The visuals have now been uploaded to Vimeo (sans sound I’m afraid, so why not listen to Drunk in Hell at the same time). Click through to watch.

Imperfect Cinema showcases DIY film, video and moving image art in Plymouth. Dan Paolatonio of Imperfect Cinema is currently working on a new project, Meanderthal, a sound-screen exploration of jitter, oscillation and drone with Mike Vest of Drunk in Hell and Bong.

Just came across this in depth interview with Ex Easter Island Head at The Quietus from last December, just after the release of Mallet Guitars Two (pretty much on constant rotation at Capsule HQ). They talk about their memorable live performances, and you can get a flavour of what to expect from their show at St Paul’s Church on 27th April.

“I take joy engaging an audience with something that’s hopefully a little bit out of the ordinary. Also I enjoy the physicality of the experimenting aspect of our setup. Because we’re not using any effects, there’s lots of physically messing round with guitars and other instruments which is just fun, really! With the sort of music we like to play as well there’s that locked groove, hypnotic feel that you’re striving for with certain parts and big, enveloping drones. When you manage to nail that in the right space with good sound and a good audience, you can really get lost in it – a bit of a cliché I know, but for good reason!” Read the full interview

Tickets for the show, which also features Barn Owl and

Grumbling Fur, are available from www.theticketsellers.co.uk

Thrill Jockey have released a second preview of the new Barn Owl record ‘V’. The track is called ‘The Long Shadow’ and is the perfect taster for their show at Birmingham’s St Paul’s Church in April.

“Similarly to ‘Void Redux’, our previous taster of the album, the track combines guitars with the duo’s new, more synth-heavy approach: a skeletal, baroque guitar line snakes its way through the track, while electronics tick and whirr beneath, underpinned by a mighty leviathan of an organ powering away in the lower reaches”. The Quietus