Music Features

Supersonic is the brainchild of the company Capsule, who specialise in promoting and organising innovative art and music events in venues across Birmingham.

Modified Toy Orchestra

Now in it's fifth year, the festival is a two day affair that takes place in and around The Custard Factory on the 13th and 14th July 2007

The Wire magazine says of Supersonic:

"As British music festivals go, Birmingham's annual Supersonic event is the best kind of mixed musical bag, a dizzying assortment of avant rock textures and Heavy Metal thunder on a bill which swings from the sublime to the ridiculous without once seeming ostentatiously eclectic."

Tickets for Friday cost £10, Saturday £25. £30 for both days.

Mogwai

Apart from the music, the organisers are promising a film programme, record stalls, art installations and cake! For more information see: www.capsule.org.uk.

And now, Capsule describe the acts that'll be playing at Supersonic Festival...

FRIDAY 13th July 9pm - 3am Medicine Bar

Otto Von Schirach

Take Electro Bass Noise, Gore Grind, IDM Glitch, Calliope, Breakcore Gabber Jungle, Gangsta Rap, mix them all together and what you get? Otto Von Schirach of course!
Otto Von Schirach (half Cuban / half German) was born in 1978 in the swamp infested refugee world of Little Havana Miami.

As a child his grandmother practiced Santeria and White Magic, which opened his eyes to the strange and bizarre. Otto grew up listening to Miami Bass, Gore Grind, Gangsta Rap and Afro Cuban Noise.

Oxbow

In 1995 Otto bought his first drum machine from a crack-head just 2 blocks from his mom’s house. Right away he recognized his passion for grimy diamond soaked kick drums through distorted fuzz muck.

Kling Klang

Kling Klang are a five piece kraut-punk band from Liverpool, consisting of four synth players and a drummer. Formed in mid 1999, as a three piece using only cheap synths and old drum machines. Since then they have used every show and release as a way to explore new dynamic ways of presenting their unique sound.

Wolf Eyes

Featuring Mike Connelly of noise kin Hair Police, he moved up to Michigan at the end of 2004 and has been jamming with Olson and Young in various projects, leading up to his introduction into Wolf Eyes. The band's recent shows have been a return to a much more primitive and raw approach to the bands' own version of Armageddon.

Shady Bard

Deadsunrising

For one night only Deadsunrising will be reforming in honour of Supersonics fifth edition, having opened the very first festival in 2003 they are back from the depths of West Bromwich, to toy with your preconceptions of how a 21st century metal band should sound. There is no safe haven once DSR have kicked in, with vocalists and guitarists spreading across the venue like bacteria, with scant regard for personal well-being.

Monarch

Monarch unleash a slow motion avalanche of impossibly glacial, blackened sludge and hypnotic feedback, each song a series of epic tarpit riffage stretched out eternally over lumbering drums and the cavernous rumble of speaker cabinets. Over these yawning expanses of black void appears the demonic, throat-shredding shrieks and ghostly singing of Emilie, whose petite appearance belies one of the harshest throats in the underground Doom spectrum.

Friday 13th July 9pm - 3am The Kitchen

PCM

PCM are Neil Harvey and Nik Wells and since their inception in 1990 have been mainstays of the Birmingham music scene, they deliver an uncompromisingly dark and aggressive take on drum and bass that is all their own, while still managing to instill a huge amount of dancefloor friendly breaks through the brutality of their music, this is a chance to see them in their most favourite environment, a dark, sweaty venue, late at night where they don't have to take any prisoners.

Kid 606

KID606 aka Miguel Depedro, born 1979 in Venezuela and raised in California. Critically acclaimed releases (both legal and illegal) on Ipecac, Mille Plateaux, Fatcat, and his own tigerbeat6 label as well as remixes for artists as disparate as Depeche Mode, The Locust, Peaches, and Super Furry Animals. Kid606 is an inspired, angry and iconoclastic artist more concerned with emotional content then popularity and unwilling to be pigeonholed in any vacant scene or soulless musical genre. It should be noted, however, that he is primarily inspired not by his electronic contemporaries, but by his love of the Industrial music, Death metal, and Industrial metal of the 1980s and 90s, particularly bands like Godflesh and Napalm Death.

Drop The Lime

Born and raised in New York City, Drop the Lime (aka. L. Venezia), began recording music at an early age. Inspired by the local rave scene he had grown up in, Venezia bought a pair of turntables and began DJ'ing jungle, drum&bass, and Techno. Expect four to the floor bangers spiked with Grime and Growling Bass Techno, while he drops his soul styled vocals.

Bela Emerson

Passionate and exciting, both musically and visually, Bela Emerson captivates audiences with her unique performances using electric cello, realtime samples and guitar effects. Her solo performances are the stuff of legend: spontaneous, intense, and exhilarating. Layers of rhythm and sound are created from every bit of the instrument, to spellbinding effect.

Saturday 14th July 4pm – 4am Outside stage

Mogwai

Stuart Braithwaite and Dominic Aitchison formed Mogwai in 1995 and since then, they have become one of the most influential and best known post-rock bands. They compose lengthy instrumental guitar-based pieces in the post-rock tradition, usually focused around the elaboration of a single theme, and are known traditionally for dynamic contrast, melodic bass riffs, and their use of guitar distortion and effects.

Chrome Hoof

Cathedral bassist Leo Smee started a bass and drums duo under the moniker CHROME HOOF with his brother Milo at the turn of the millennium to celebrate their shared love of mid seventies funk and disco. Like sequinned pied pipers. they recruited everywhere they played, building an army of multi instrumentalists, including a full horn and string section.

You've most likely heard of their legendary live shows - A veritable orchestra of musicians decked out in futuristic monk's robes kicking it like some unholy hybrid of SUN RA, ESG, GOBLIN, PARLIAMENT/FUNKADELIC and BLACK SABBATH, complete with choreographed dancers, actors taking vaudeville interludes, and a twelve foot tall metallic ram dominating the dancefloor.

Modified Toy Orchestra

Brian Duffy has been a stalwart of the circuit-bending scene for a number of years now. He set the bar pretty high for the MTO, his remit was only to use discarded kid's keyboards and talking toys to modify and circuit bend them beyond their original capabilities. Making perfect pop songs from imperfect instruments.

The new incarnation of the orchestra, consists of Laurence Hunt(Pram) Darren Joyce (DOTB) Mike Johnston (Plone, Mike in Mono) Michael Valentine West and Chris Plant.

Tunng

A perfect mixture of skewed electronica and pastoral English Folk music. If the pub in the Wicker man needed an in house band they would call Tunng, singing you a sweet melody whilst slipping a poison in your drink, they are the sound of a mermaid singing to you, only to bring you into a pit of darkness and despair. Compellingly beautiful songs with an underlying sense of dread.

Shady Bard

Their lineup is a miniature indie orchestra of pianos, guitars, casiotones, violin, cello, French horn and samples which burst occasionally into catastrophic scuzz. They have released a sold out ep on Static Caravan, played on BBC Radio 2, Radio 4 and 6music, and performed at Green Man Festival 2006. The single, Penguins was released in October on limited edition ice clear vinyl and has now sold out.

Strings Of Consciousness

A constant flow of words and ideas giving birth to new texts, this is what the group is looking for on stage. It all starts from a much rehearsed and tightly woven musical soundtrack then it gradually evolves, moves then frays to end up into unfamiliar regions... A direct threat which is inviting each musician to conscientiously listen to the other members, to look at them, then play for and with one another, free from any restraints.

Rojac Building

Sunn 0)))

SUNN 0))) is the project of Stephen O' Malley (Khanate/Burning Witch) founder of Southern Lord Records Greg Anderson ( and Goatsnake). Formed in memory of the cult drone-riff founders EARTH and honors the beautiful Ozma. The SUNN0))) mission is to create trance like soundscapes with the ultimate low end/bottom frequencies intended to massage the listeners intenstines into a act of defecation.

Qui

The Los Angeles trio is Paul Christensen on drums, Matt Cronk on guitar, and David Yow, who joined the band last year, doing what he does best. If you're a Scratch Acid or Jesus Lizard fan, Qui sounds like a grungier sampling of both, with a little psychedelic stoner rock thrown in.

OM

Formed by Al Cisneros (bass/vocals) and Chris Hakius (drums), both founding members of legendary doom pioneers Sleep. OM released their album - Conference of the Birds in 2005. Comprised of two songs that build on their use of cyclical rhythm, riff and vocal intonation, the duo’s new album blends metal, chant, drone, dub and psychedelia. The band’s lyrics expound upon the structure of the universe, potentiality and freedom from the physical body. Engineered by Billy Anderson (Neurosis, Melvins) and produced by the band.

Pharaoh Overlord

A side project of Circle's Jussi Lehtisalo, is pretty much a perfect cross between the hypnotic riff-repetition and rhythmic pulse of Circle and the super heavy doom vibe of Kyuss-worshippers Natas!
Jussi describes this project (which also includes the guitarist from Bad Vugum band Sweetheart) as being "hypno-improv-stoner-rock from Finland (file under psychedelic)"

Miasma & The Carousel of Headless Horses

A British instrumental quintet that plays dark, antiquated sounding music encompassing elements of Eastern European folk, avant-rock, broken-down calliope music, and neo-classical film composition. Featuring members of Guapo.

Crippled Black Phoenix

Born from a blizzard of horned cats, Crippled Black Phoenix bring you a twisted cinematic experience, handcrafted by a mercenary crew of underground heavyweights, giving depth and gravity to regal songs about love, loss, tragedies and redemption.

Back in the summer of 2004, Electric Wizard drummer Justin Greaves (also of Iron Monkey, Teeth of Lions Rule the Divine) started recordings songs and soundscapes he'd had in his head for several years onto minidiscs, looping them through an old stereo to achieve the multi-layers, these were the bones of what would eventually become the international outfit that is CBP.

Aided by good friend (and Mogwai bassist) Dominic Aitchison. Other great compadres followed, Panthiest members Andy Semmens and Kostas Panagiotou, Nial McGaughey of 3D House of Beef and -(16)- amongst others and solo folk singer-songwriter Joe Volk, who also fronts heavy rock band Gonga, all stepped up to bring a variety of influences and skills to complete the line-up.

Migrant

Migrant create electro-acoustic sound sculptures through live improvisation. The trio - sound artist Helena Gough, Simon Mabbott (Black Galaxy) and Nicholas Bullen (ex-Napalm Death / Scorn) – use a combination of laptops, live performance software, prepared guitar and amplified objects to generate a sonic landscape of shifting soundfields which encompass sparse electronic soundbeds, languid tone drifts and abrasive digital broadcast storms.

Sounds are generated, sampled and re-configured in a process of real-time sound creation and signal processing that is focused on interaction between the Migrant artists.
Migrant will perform to a backdrop of a film created by Nicholas Bullen specifically for this performance