Capsule’s director Lisa Meyer has been selected to participate in a very exciting project led by British Council, PRS Foundation, BFI and Home.

Film, Archive and Music Lab will explore the creative potential of collaboration between the worlds of cinema, film archive and music. The British Council has invited 18 artists and producers – including music makers, film makers and video game composers – to take part in a series of workshops, masterclasses, screenings and networking events all with the aim of increasing opportunities for cross-sector work, while providing a fertile breeding ground for future collaborations.

Read more HERE

“Godspeed You! Black Emperor are a band that can use the trappings of feedback, noise, and drones in equal balance with melody and rhythm to lead you to genuinely higher place.”
read the full review HERE

Thanks to Katja Ogrin for capturing this epic performance, and a huge thanks to so many of you that turned out to see Godspeed’s first performance in the Midlands in over 13 years. Let’s hope we don’t have to wait quite so long for their return.
If you get the chance check out Dead Rat Orchestra who are a truly unique ensemble and played an amazing opening set.

We’re super excited to be teaming up with Sound of Static to present Godspeed You! Black Emperor at Warwick Arts Centre on Thursday 22 October.

Returning to UK shores for a handful of live performances this autumn, Godspeed You! Black Emperor will be showcasing their 2015 album, Asunder, Sweet and Other Distress, along with some music from their extensive back catalogue. With recent appearances described as “a triumph of sound and vision” that “straddled the line between grandiosity and chaos”, GY!BE are in top form as a live unit, so audiences can expect this to be a very special performance, with this being the only Midlands date. Support comes from the Dead Rat Orchestra, making this a truly unmissable evening.

Tickets are priced at £24 + booking fee and can be purchased here.
www.warwickartscentre.co.uk/whats-on/2015/godspeed-you-black-emperor-plus-guests/

In March this year, GY!BE returned with its first single LP-length release since the group’s earliest days in 1997-99, ‘Asunder, Sweet And Other Distress’, which clocks in at a succinct 40:23, and is arguably the most focused and best-sounding recording of the band’s career. Working with sound engineer Greg Norman (Electrical Audio) at studios in North Carolina and Montreal, GYBE slowly and steadily put the new album together through late 2013 and 2014, emerging with a mighty slab of superlative sonics, shot through with all the band’s inimitable signposts and touchstones: huge unison riffage, savage noise/drone, oscillating overtones, guitar vs. string counterpoint, inexorable crescendos and scorched-earth transitions.

Asunder, Sweet And Other Distress’ finds Godspeed in top form; a sterling celebration of the band’s awesome dialectic, where composition, emotion and ‘note-choice’ is inextricable from an exacting focus on tone, timbre, resonance and the sheer materiality of sound.

What Capsule does on holiday

We’ve been busy making plans and making playlists.

We’re producing and curating the glorious, FREE Grand Cross Fayre II in a couple of weeks, AND THEN, the hugely welcome prospect of the only West Midlands show from Godspeed! You Black Emperor in October is on the horizon. (tickets are available here, ahem).

In honour of these super swish events and to celebrate the receding memory of another brilliant Supersonic Festival, we’ve made a nice late summer mix.  Full of tunes to snaffle an ice cream to, the mix features some favourites from Supersonic Festival 2015, such as ultimate summer babes, Happy Meals, plus Trembling Bells affiliates, The Crying Lion, who will be performing at Grand Cross Fayre, and of course, a brand new track from GY!BE.

We hope that, wherever you are, you’ve got some (sunny…possibly) relaxation time planned before this glorious British Summer fades like your old Sabbath t shirt. Here’s mix, replete with track list, for your listening pleasure. Enjoy and see you soon!

1. Apatt: Yes… That’s Positive

2. Gum Takes Tooth: This Perfect Surface

3. Ashtray Navigations: Sponge

4. Apostille: Good Man

5. Happy Meals: Altered Images

6. Ravioli Me Away: Imagination

7. Sex Swing: Night Time Worker

8. Hey Colossus: Black and Gold

9. Selvhenter: A2 Æbler & Pærer

10. Godspeed You! Black Emperor: Peasantry Or ‘Light! Inside Of Light!’

11. Richard Dawson: Poor Old Horse

12. Crying Lion: The Golden Boat

We are pleased to announce that we are collaborating with Sound of Static to present Godspeed You! Black Emperor on the 22 October.

Tickets from www.warwickartscentre.co.uk/whats-on/2015/godspeed-you-black-emperor-plus-guests/

Formed in Montreal, Canada in 1994 post rock legends Godspeed You! Black Emperor continue to release genre defining albums and still perform breathtaking live shows. Returning to UK shores for a handful of live shows this autumn, GY!BE will be showcasing their 2015 album, Asunder, Sweet and Other Distress along with some hefty numbers from their extensive back catalogue. A truly rare evening and one not to be missed.

Taking place at  Warwick Arts Centre, this is GY!BE’s only Midlands show and seats are limited so get in fast.

www.facebook.com/events/509464785876925/

Poster designed by David Hand

We’re delighted to have been invited back by Appetite to curate and produce a second version of The Grand Cross Fayre. Working with the Hanford Village Residents Association.

The event will be held on Saturday 5th September in Hanford Park, Stoke-on-Trent, ST4 4QG and will feature a mix of new music and arts workshops. This a FREE event – open to the public and family friendly.

Doors will open at 12pm, with music starting from 2pm and running till 7.00pm.

Bringing an extraordinary afternoon of outdoor delights to Hanford Park with new music, with a selection of workshops and an array of street food, vintage stalls and more to entertain and delight!
Full details of the line up will be revealed over the coming weeks.

Stalwart Finnish psych lords, and Supersonic Festival veterans, Circle return to Birmingham for a Supersonic 2015 warm up show at the Hare and Hounds. Formed in 1991, Circle is the most visible and prolific name in the Finnish avant-rock underground. Having survived innumerable lineup changes, the band and its founder, bassist/vocalist/guitarist Jussi Lehtisalo, have constantly reinvented themselves, weaving hypnotic mantras out of exacting Krautrock beats, heavy riffs, arty noise, dark psychedelia, and soundtrack-like beauty. Hard, chilly repetition has served as the lone unifying theme throughout 15 years of experiments.

Support for this warm up show comes from the mighty Hey Colossus, who are currently riding a wave of “album of the year” reviews for their latest opus ‘In Black And Gold’. Hey Colossus will smash you in the face with a wall of grimy noise and murky lyrics.

Amply fleshing out the line up is Birmingham’s own doom-sludge five piece Opium Lord, sure to open the night loud and kick you into shape with their abrasive and filthy noise.

Tickets available here

You can also RSVP on Facebook here

Supersonic Festival are delighted to be partnering with the British Library Sound Archive to create a new commission as part of the Capsule Labs, an artist development and commissioning scheme devised to create more opportunities for commissioning experimental, cross-disciplinary art.

Stephen Cracknell, founder of The Memory Band, has worked with selected material from the Library’s archive to create a new work, Children of the Stones  is intended as a sonic adventure into the strange heart of our haunted landscape. . Mixing archival recordings, natural and industrial sounds, traditional melodies and original field recordings alongside a new acoustic score, the performance will celebrate the strange, mysterious and playful relationship we have developed with the ancient and magical landscape we inhabit.

Since 2003 The Memory Band has been mapping the mutant edgelands of British Folk music, where digital machinery and acoustic music combine to make traditional music from the future.

The Children of the Stones performance will take place on Saturday 13 June as part of Supersonic Festival

To accompany the commission there will be a ltd edition seven inch record on sale containing audio from the performance via Static Caravan Records.

The British Library is home to the nation’s sound archive, an extraordinary collection of over 6.5 million recordings of speech, music, wildlife and the environment, from the 1880s to the present day. It has recently launched the Save our Sounds programme which is a major digitisation project to preserve the nation’s sound heritage – read more here: www.bl.uk/projects/save-our-sounds