SUPERSONIC FESTIVAL: REVIEW
It may have reached teenage status but for some Supersonic’s experimental charms have yet to be tested so we sent the adventurous and ever-so-slightly curious Harry Vale to fully immerse himself in the experience of everything the festival has to offer…
Supersonic is one of those Brummie institutions, like the Flatpack Festival, that I always talk about going to, then end up sitting in the pub a week later, reading a book, and lamenting that I missed it again this year. I finally get the chance to go this year and the response from most is that I’m going to hate it and that it’s a bit “noisy”. Looking into some of the bands on the programme (none of whom I’ve ever heard of) confirms my friends’ worries, but I decide to go into it with a relatively open mind. I’m also pretty sure I’ll be able to snag some free beer and cake, which will make it all worth it. I drag the missus along as my +1, because I know she’ll hate it and that amuses me.
The first act are Free School, a bunch of local lads, making a delightful electro-disco racket. Dressed in boiler suits and animal masks, they look like a bunch of demented, escaped Splicers from the Brum quarter of Rapture. Music to dance to, but only the guy in front of me sucking on an e-cig is bothering to do so. Some of the Free School’s stuff sounds a bit like David Wise’s soundtrack work (Aquatic Ambience) with big beats. Strong start to the festival.
The Pop Group are up next. The programme delights in telling me they’re one of the most Important Bands Ever. They smash their way through an hour of their greatest hits, to the delight of the crowd, including new single Citizen Zombie, which sounds a bit like Alexei Balowski after a few espressos. Mark Stewart prowls the stage, introducing each song as a call to arms, a rallying cry to bring down the government, television, or anything that isn’t loud dubby, Funkadelic as fronted by the bastard son of Nick Cave and George Orwell. Like being taken back in time to the early 80s, it’s a little bit Talking Heads, a little bit Sonic Youth, a lot loud and sometimes embarrassingly earnest.
Being Supersonic, no two acts are the same, so we get Woven Skull, a loud, cinematic collection of riffs and drones from what I imagine is a haunted cave somewhere on the Irish coast. Natalia kicks off the show with an ominous series of bell rings, her long hair covering her face and making her look a bit like an Irish Sadako. I instinctively take a few steps back from the stage. A collection of noise-y riffs and deep, thunderous drones emerge from the stage, sounding a bit like the bowel movements of Cthulhu. I don’t think I’m in for any choruses today. It’s anti-ambience, the soundtrack to a Nordic horror film, like the sound of the world ending, right here in Digbeth.
I escape to the marketplace in the nearby college, where I watch the missus try and make a turntable out of cardboard, blu tack and a needle. She does it, just, and the result is, well a bit crap, but more tuneful than some of the stuff I imagine I’ll be hearing later. A quick stop at Bunny Bissoux’s stall to buy some trading cards, talk about wrestling, then it’s on to Dirty Electronics.
Basically the sound of a robot dying, Dirty Electronics makes a loud, drone-y, glitch-filled noise that has packed out the Boxxed venue. It’s a bit like the noise inside Max Cohen’s head in Pi, but for 40 endless minutes. It’s a sound more suited for the darker, more claustrophobic Crossing venue down the road. As it is, this apocalyptic noise doesn’t work in a big, open venue with sunlight streaming through the ceiling. I’m more interested in the process of making the sound than I am in the actual sound. The enrapt Supersonic crowd loved it, though.
I escape to the smoking area in the back which is inexplicably populated by massive, fibreglass dinosaurs. Supersonic. I tuck into an Oreo cake so dense 7 inch vinyls by Ecuadorian noise bands have started to orbit it. The Memory Band are next, in the Crossing. Beautiful folk music, like the title music for an imaginary HBO show about farmers or the railroads. It’s ethereal, doom-laden music for ghosts, and it’s quite brilliant.
Eternal Tapestry weave dense, psychedelic riffs, with a big, grooving rhythm section creating an interesting soundscape that doesn’t seem to go anywhere or feel the need to do so. A pleasant, deafening tonic after Dirty Electronics. Another escape to the dinosaur garden, to grab a drink. You can feel Eternal Tapestry’s bass through the dinosaurs, like a cheap, SyFy Jurassic Park. Music like this doesn’t make any more or less sense when surrounded by dinosaurs, but it doesn’t hurt.
Liima are well-suited to the more atmospheric Crossing venue, making a synth-y, ambient sound that flows like water. Unpredictable waves of sounds and textures that feels like being in the smuggest rainforest in the world. Interesting, but doesn’t really go anywhere from there, something I feel a lot of the bands at Supersonic suffer from. I’m wearing a Manics t-shirt and a Muse hoodie, so I understand I’m desperately clinging onto a sound from the early 2000s that doesn’t exist outside of those respective bands’ live shows.
Back to Boxxed for Six Organs of Admittance. Riffs. Noise. Feedback. My poor, bleeding ears. The band don’t so much play the instruments as they attack them, beating them into submission, daring the notes not to be discordant and painful. I’m on board with this, the missus isn’t, and spends the set reading Reddit and trying to find extra ear plugs. It’s the sort of aural attack you imagine interrogators use in secret prisons in Lithuania.
What I imagine must be the biggest show of the festival, judging from the crowd and the expectant buzz in the venue, Holly Herndon leaves us waiting as I try and imagine what’s going to come from her laptop, which I’m promised is “recast as an untapped physical instrument.” Okay.
She comes on stage to a big cheer, then starts messing around with Facebook, the contents of her laptop screen projected behind her. She’s doing… something, and there’s a pleasant noise while she’s doing it. Then she launches into something that looks a bit like a tech demo for a video game physics engine from 2002, crossed with a deleted scene from Inception, if set in Digbeth. Big beats and even bigger bass throbs through me (I can feel it in my heart), as something transpires on screen that I don’t really understand or care to parse, it just looks like wank. It’s a delightful noise-y dance-pop sound she makes, exactly what I was expecting from Supersonic.
It’s been a long weekend of mostly confusing noise, loud riffs, and random dinosaurs. My ears are mostly healed by the sound of Richard Dawson, a big highlight of the festival. Moving, hypnotic folk that makes you realise why people bang on about Supersonic so much. It’s a collection of music that is often challenging, sometimes relentlessly so, but it’s worth it to find stuff like Free School, The Memory Band and Richard Dawson. I don’t think I’ll be in the pub for next year’s festival.
Words: Harry Vale
Photos: Joe Singh
