We asked Birminghams very own answer to John Peel, Little Chris of Brum Cast fame to put together three podcasts featuring a taster of bands performing at this years Supersonic Festival to give you an insight to what’s on offer. This is the first one featuring a great selection for your aural delight, enjoy!

Playlist as follows!
1. Necro Deathmort – I fought the law and the law won because fighting is against the law (4:01)
2. Melt Banana – Mind Thief (1:44)
3. Dead Fader – Autumn Rot (3:46)
4. Fukpig – Die Bastard (0:59)
5. Neu! – Hallo Gallo (10:07)
6. Nisennenmondai – Pop Group (6:21)
7. Khyam Allami – Taqsim Nahawand (4:40)
8. Tweak Bird – Spaceships (3:30)
9. Pierre Bastien – L’Orchestre Thermo-Dynamique (4:57)
10. Godflesh – Like Rats (4:27)
11. Swans – New Mind (5:13)
12. Lichens – Kirilian Auras (11:33)
13. Factory Floor – Lying (5:07)
14. Napalm Death – Continuing War on Stupidity (3:10)
15. Bong – Wizards Of Krull (Excerpt) (6:21)
16. People Like Us – The Doody Waltz (5:54)

More info about the festival check www.supersonicfestival.com
Tickets are available from www.theticketsellers.co.uk

During this year’s Supersonic you are invited to enter the tiny musical world of Pierre Bastien & Male Instrumenty, bringing together the French composer and surrealist inventor together with the Polish toy orchestra for a very special performance entitled ‘Toy Music’.

Pierre Bastien has been building musical machinery since the 1970s and has an expansive practice as a musician, composer and sound artist. Male Instrumenty is a five piece orchestra of toys and small instruments from Wrocław, Poland. Founded in 2006, Małe Instrumenty (meaning Small Instruments) explore an exciting and diverse sound world through their huge collection of small instruments.

http://www.maleinstrumenty.pl

http://www.pierrebastien.com/

Supersonic Festival 2010:
Friday: £20, Sat/Sun: £35, Weekend: £75 (+ booking fee)

Available from:
www.theticketsellers.co.uk

Weekend Tickets from:
www.seetickets.com

If you missed, or want to revisit, last week’s excellent, Silver Apples show,  then head to Phantom Circuit where you can hear an interview with Simeon himself and hear excerpts from his performance.

Here’s the blurb:

Featuring an interview with Simeon of the hugely influential electronics + percussion band Silver Apples, formed in New York in 1967 and still carving out new sonic territory as a solo project. The interview is accompanied by some highlights of Silver Apples’ live set in Birmingham last week (5th August).
Of course, we also offer you some of the core new releases and some older picks plucked from the orchard of aural delights.
More about the show and the music featured can be found at phantomcircuit.com

And tonight will see Tunng + Health & Efficiency at mac – there’s the possibility this show will be moved to the theatre space due to the crummy weather, which is a smaller capacity so secure your ticket here

Tonights show with TUNNG + HEALTH & EFFICIENCY at MAC will still be going ahead come rain or shine. Should the weather not clear up by 3pm the show will be moved inside to the theatre space, as such this will reduce the capacity so you will need to get your tickets now to avoid disappointment
box office 0121 446 3232.
This will be a great evening – god bless the British weather!

DAY TICKETS RELEASED FOR
SUPERSONIC FESTIVAL 2010

FINAL ACTS ADDED TO LINE-UP

KING MIDAS SOUND / ZENI GEVA / CLOAKS (exclusive solo DJ set) /
FACTORY FLOOR / NISENNENMONDAI / MUGSTAR /  DEVILMAN / PETER BRODERICK PIERRE BASTIEN + MALE INSTRUMENTY / FUKPIG  / LASH FRENZY vs KK NULL /
KHYAM ALLAMI AND MASTER MUSICIANS OF UKKAKE PRESENT: BOSPHOREAN  / MONARCH/ DEAD FADER / STINKY WIZZLETEAT

Joining confirmed acts including:
NAPALM DEATH / GODFLESH / SWANS
HALLOGALLO – Michael Rother + Friends present the music of NEU!

PEOPLE LIKE US / DEMONS (W/SICK LLAMA) / OvO / PART WILD HORSES MANE ON BOTH SIDES / DOSH / TWEAK BIRD / DRUMCORPS / CAVE / PCM / JAILBREAK FEAT. CHRIS CORSANO + HEATHER LEIGH / MELT BANANA / JAMES BLACKSHAW / LICHENS / BONG / GNOD / VOICE OF THE SEVEN THUNDERS / NECRO DEATHMORT / GNAW / EAGLE TWIN / BLUE SABBATH BLACK FIJI

Tickets on sale now from:
www.theticketsellers.co.uk
www.seetickets.com

Friday: £20, Sat/Sun: £35, Weekend: £75

Following the news that the 2010 edition of Birmingham’s acclaimed annual Supersonic Festival will be headlined by NAPALM DEATH, SWANS, GODFLESH and HALLOGALLO, Capsule are pleased to announce that a limited number of individual day tickets are now on sale, priced £20 (Friday) and £35 (Saturday/Sunday), with weekend tickets on sale at £75.

Friday night will be headlined by Birmingham extreme metallers Napalm Death, Saturday by Godflesh, for their first UK appearance in over 10 years, and Sunday by two equally unmissable acts, Swans and Hallogallo 2010 – Michael Rother + friends play the music of NEU!

Supersonic are also excited to reveal the final round of incredible artists who will be appearing at this year’s festival. From Doom to dun step and folk, Supersonic 2010 is set to cement the festival’s reputation as one of the most original and eclectic music festivals in the UK.

Regarded as pioneers of experimental music by the likes of Sonic Youth and Merzbow, KK Null’s incredible collective Zeni Geva will be bringing their prog-hardcore to the Supersonic stage, and KK will also be appearing alongside Birmingham sound artist, Lash Frenzy, in a truly unmissable performance. Also confirmed, Kevin Martin, creator of experimental dancehall project The Bug, with his incredible, critically acclaimed new project, King Midas Sound.

Aggressive, noisy and hailed by many as the successor to Napalm Death, Fukpig will be playing their new breed of Birmingham grindcore, along with heavy, heavy dub from Devilman aka DJ Scotch Egg and Dokkebi Q. Also confirmed, Monarch, with the demonic, throat-shredding shrieks of Emilie, whose petite appearance belies one of the harshest throats in the underground Doom spectrum.
Following a knock-out 2009 performance, Nisennenmondai return, bringing their driving rhythm section and metallic guitar sound, along with Mugstar, who will be playing their unique underground mix of psychedelia and krautrock.  Also confirmed, the most exciting new band to come out of London, Factory Floor, who will also be putting in one of their legendary brutal, live performances, and there will be an unmissable Cloaks DJ set from Steve Cloaks, who will be playing strictly Cloaks material only, in an exclusive performance for Supersonic 2010. There will also be heaviness, good times and volume a-plenty from Birmingham’s very own Stinky Weezleteet and distorto-death groves from Brighton’s Dead Fader.
World music meets psychedelic rock in a unique performance from Khyam Allami and Master Musicians of Bukkake, combining the sublime Oud playing of Iraqi musician Khyam Allami with the 7-piece out rock unit, Master Musicians of Bukkake. French composer and surrealist inventor Pierre Bastien will also be bringing his musical machinery, which he has been making since the 1970s, and will share the bill with Male Instrumenty, the fantastic five-piece orchestra of toys and small instruments from Poland. Also, the “painfully young and unnervingly talented” American multi-instrumentalist Peter Broderick, who will be exploring minimalism and instrumentalism with tinges of folk.

For further details check out our website www.supersonicfestival.com

OPEN CALL:

Eastside Projects and Supersonic Festival are looking for performers for GOTTESRAUSCHEN (GOD’S WHITE NOISE) conceived by artist Christian Jendreiko. Taking place at Eastside Projects on Saturday 23 October, 12–7pm. We are looking for people interested in going through the GOTTESRAUSCHEN experience: You do not need to be a trained guitar player, however you should be interested in sonic exploration of the self. The full performance lasts 7 hours — involvement for the duration is optional: players may come and go. Performers are required to bring their own electric guitar and amplifier, which can be stored securely at Eastside Projects for the full festival weekend. Contact info[at]eastsideprojects.org for more details as places are limited.

Düsseldorf-based artist Christian Jendreiko is known for making actions with large ensembles of trained or untrained performers in novel, site-specific settings. Jendreiko specifically seeks to reconsider acoustics as aspects of how body and mind are constructed, through a decentralized and sculptural approach towards performance. Lasting anywhere between two and seven hours and featuring classically trained musicians alongside untrained performers in nonhierarchical and improvisatory fashion, Jendreiko transforms groups into social sculpture.

For the Birmingham premiere of ‘GOTTESRAUSCHEN (GOD’S WHITE NOISE): Action for Players, Guitars & Amplifiers’, a number of musicians and artists will perform at Eastside Projects over the course of 7 hours. Intended as a performance for an indeterminate number of guitarists and amplifiers, and taking its cue from a passage by Friedrich Schiller on man’s relationship to a series of sensual and formal compulsions (“For all beauty is ultimately but a property of … movement”), GOD’S WHITE NOISE will unfold over a single day, with guests free to enter, circulate throughout, and remain in the gallery space as long as they wish.

Weekend Tickets for Supersonic Festival are available from www.theticketsellers.co.uk
Polar Bear – Kings Heath + Swordfish – Birmingham city centre

Thanks to everyone who came down to the excellent Silver Apples show last night, a great performance and brilliant to see so many people turn out for it. On to our next show and Friday 13th August sees the return of weirdo pop folksters Tunng who take to the Arena stage of the mac for a very special outdoor performance.

They recently played at Glastonbury to rave reviews, here’s some pics…

And here’s what the Guardian thinks of their new record

That changes might be afoot in the world of Tunng is apparent from Hustle, the opening track of … And Then We Saw Land. Hustle shoots out of the traps, a pop melody borne along on upper-­register piano notes, acoustic ­guitars and banjos, the slight, breathy voices of Mike Lindsay and Becky Jacobs blending in a way that is wistful and charming rather than wimpy and indefinite. It’s a fine start to Tunng’s fourth album, and one they build on. They haven’t suddenly become a pop band – It Breaks, October and These Wind employ ­melodies from the English folk tradition – but there’s a real oomph and purpose here that, perhaps, Tunng never quite managed before.

Support comes from multi instrumentalists Health & Efficiency who have previously supported acts as diverse as Damien Jurado, Modified Toy Orchestra and Three Trapped Tigers.

Go to the mac to find out more info and get yer tickets