Supersonic Festival 2012

The 10th Supersonic Festival was held in the Custard Factory in Birmingham. Since the line-up was announced some months ago, I had been excited about attending. The slogan on a lot of the commemorative t-shirts was ‘celebrating 10 years of adventurous music.’ My experiences ranged from the obscure to the experimental to the just plain weird, so the slogan seems apt enough. On Friday night I arrived to be greeted by the minimalist electronica of Modified Toy Orchestra. I had listened to their album and largely formed the opinion that their idea of exclusively using children’s toys to make their music with techniques such as circuit bending was interesting but their music was ultimately unimpressive. I have to say though, they surprised me. First of all, because I wasn’t expecting five serious looking guys in all black suits, but more than that because it had a much more sinister aspect live and frankly, a toy gun being used to make a beat, the audience being addressed by a partly dismantled doll’s head and another doll with three contact mics stuck into its head simply make for a good spectacle.

Hey Collosus I expected more from, but sound problems paved the way for an underwhelming performance. Occasionally, they got into their groove, dropping sludgy riffs almost on demand and experimenting lightly with drones and motorik rhythms. These last two elements, however, were presented to me as a key feature of their work and I was disappointed that they didn’t delve more deeply into the experimental areas of their music.

Next up was JK Flesh. He provided what I expected – Justin Broadrick with a Macbook and a guitar, screaming and playing riffs over drum & bass beats while dystopian black and white images were presented in the background. It was ok, and I appreciated seeing Broadrick perform, but I felt it was lacking as a live spectacle.

On Saturday, the shows began in the late afternoon and I was treated to one of the best performances of the weekend. Stian Westerhus, from Rune Grammofon band Puma, presented an impressive solo performance. It consisted of him, his guitar and about ten pedals. He proceeded to produce some intense noise. Like Puma, and indeed his solo work, there was a definite sense, for me at least, that he was extracting and presenting the euphoric side of noise. In fact, the emotive nature of the 30-minute piece really struck me, as he seemed to barely notice the audience and was visibly carried away by his performance. He then cut it down, with some ambient bowing and built it right back up again, at one point even screaming into his pickups to produce feedback. Another aspect I appreciated was his deep understanding of his intricate set-up and his intuitive relationship with it.

After this I drifted for a while, watching Sir Richard Bishop doing some impressive guitar noodling and Kevin Drumm dropping some noisy drone. I don’t feel that I have the right to comment though because I only saw parts of these sets. Dylan Carlson disappointed me. I just have to say that. What I saw of his set was him doing some Earth-style guitar over a backing track before being joined by a disappointing singer and drummer. While an album of the guitar over backing track would be good, it really didn’t work for me live.

Flower-Corsano Duo produced another amazing show. It would be remiss of me not to mention Chris Corsano’s incredible drumming ability, with precise dynamics and timing, playing at breakneck speed seemingly without breaking a sweat. Mick Flower’s Japanese banjo (it sounded like a sitar) gave the performance an almost spiritualfeel. The drumming helped alter the feeling of meditation to one of catharsis as he built up the piece. At the peak of the music a visualisation talking about the choice between fear and love added to the atmosphere these two virtuosos produced and left me simply wanting to reflect on what I’d seen.

Enter Bohren & der Club of Gore. Slow, relaxing jazz. They performed in the dark with a small spotlight over each of them. The 40 minutes of their set didn’t leave me with much to say but that’s not a bad thing at all. It served as a fantastic chill out, appreciated by everyone watching. This chill out soon ended unceremoniously, with the crowd already pumped at the prospect of Merzbow, and many, like myself, staying where they were to get the best possible spot. The festival threw a few curveballs and Merzbow’s set was one of the biggest. Many were expecting a laptop set, as this seems to be a direction he has taken for a long time now. It transpired, however, that we were in for a surprise and a treat. He performed the entire set with a drummer and one of the tracks featured a guitarist. The other of the two tracks featured a brief cameo by Eugene Robinson of Oxbow (mainly shouting). Throughout, Merzbow played what I can only describe as a ‘noise banjo’; it resembled a banjo, but had thick metalcoils in place of strings and a solid metal body. This was then connected into his rig and violently strummed to produce a much more metal/grind inspired set than expected, harking back to 1994’s Veneorology. He also used a laptop and various noise boxes, one of which produced magnificent tunnelling noises that seemed to travel through the brain. An immense set from a true master of noise, one that really tore me a new one and drove me nearly deaf, but delighted.

After that I was feeling a bit overexcited, but I found the perfect tonic in Carlton Melton. Their sounds reminded me of AC/DC and Sleep hot-boxing a trailer trash caravan in the desert… on Mars. A blend of space rock, doom, drone and straight-up rock’n’roll, their show was highly enjoyable. Between beatless interludes, there were moments of classic rock showmanship: for example a drum solo, or the guitarist entering the crowd and passing his guitar to an audience member. It was pretty simple, but enjoyable nonetheless.

Next up was Zeni Geva, who seemed strange as the last act of night, but members KK Null and the drummer from Ruins served up a good set of hardcore/death metal with a pounding aggression I had been missing for a while.

Sunday started off fairly abrasively with Clifford Torus. The band was described as being on the noise side of noise rock. That’s what I expected and what I got, with half an hour or so of atonal, noise-laden sludge. A great way to start the day in my opinion, and they produced some real headbangers as well as linking up well with each other.

Ruins Alone was basically the drummer from Ruins playing to a backing track. Good and entertaining, yes, and it showcased his ability well, but it just made me want to see Ruins in their full glory.

KK Null performed a solo noise set of the highest quality. While Merzbow’s show was grind/metal based, Null’s was a lot more electronica oriented, with noise occasionally being dropped over beats. It was not lacking in intensity however, and ended in Null screaming into a mic, which outputted his scream in the form of heavily distorted noise, after which he slammed it down and that was the set. Two guys from doom band ORE then took the stage, playing tubas, and set up a nice drone, which Null then came in and blasted some noise over. This kind of collaboration is a big part of what made the festival so special, but I still preferred his solo set.

Lash Frenzy’s Ver Heroicus Sublimis, a 10th anniversary performance, came next, and provided probably the biggest surprise of the weekend. I did not entirely know what to expect, but I knew it would be unique and that there would be many guest musicians. After some spoken word on the subject of sonic attack, a drone started to form. Drone became noise and then an array of musicians in the crowd started to join in. Then a woman walked in wearing next to nothing and circulated the room. At this time, it started to become clear that everyone was meant to circulate, as there were different pockets of sound throughout the room. This was further implied by some guys carrying strobes around. Thoroughly puzzling and intense, it was probably the weirdest thing I’ve ever been to. Afterwards I was completely flabbergasted, and the thought of going to anything else seemed somewhat alien.

The final act I did go to see was Dope Body. They were OK, and brought kind of a party atmosphere, but a cheap pseudo-noise rock thrill perhaps.

Honourable mention has to go out to Tim Hecker and Oxbow Orchestra, both of whom I was hoping to see but couldn’t because of train times. Hecker in particular is a pleasure to see live, and I’m sure he’d have blown me away. On that note, I left the festival with a deep sense of appreciation for what I’d seen, of time well spent, but with a sense of regret at who I had missed.