INTERVIEW: Lisa Meyer (Supersonic Festival)

(Photo: Lisa Meyer)

Championing alternative music and celebrating experimental art-forms is the lifeblood of Birmingham’s Supersonic Festival. Founded in 2003, the multi-venue event has become renowned for showcasing a unique array of musical and artistic talent from heavy and alternative genres. Get In Her Ears were lucky enough to attend the festival for the first time in 2024, where we saw Gazelle Twin, THE NONE, Emma Ruth Rundle, Tristwch Y Fenywod and many more (read our highlights feature here.)

The line-up for this year’s edition of Supersonic – which runs from 29th-31st of August – is equally as impressive. GIHE favourite Penelope Trappes brings her stunning album A Requiem to the festival for the first time. Aussie instrumental-doom project Divide and Dissolve will return to pulverize eardrums with their gargantuan-yet-graceful noises and inimitable Zambian-Canadian rapper BACKXWASH will also return to share her corrosive beats and scathing lyrics with festival goers.

“I think of heaviness not necessarily as an amplification, but as music that is reflective of our world that we’re living in, and we’re living in really heavy times,” shares Artistic Director Lisa Meyer, deftly articulating why Supersonic Festival resonates so strongly with its loyal attendees. She is the creative force leading the dedicated team who have been curating this eclectic event for over twenty years. As the CEO of Capsule and the founder of the Home Of Metal project too, Lisa has dedicated her life to following and championing alternative culture.

“I think because we’re in Birmingham; the DNA of Birmingham is Black Sabbath, Godflesh and Napalm Death, but [Supersonic] is not, as I would call it, a ‘dude fest’ or a straight-forward metal fest,” she explains. “It’s about exploring heaviness across genres. There is a darkness to a lot of folk or electronic music and sometimes the most gentle, beautiful music has a sadness and a heaviness [to it],” she continues, citing Irish experimental doom-folk band ØXN as a great example. “There are heavy drones within their music, but Radie Peat’s voice cuts through you in a way that I think is as full-on as a metal band. It’s more about the feeling that [the music] creates within you.”

This emotional connection is something we were struck by at our first experience of Supersonic in 2024. It made us want to dig deeper and find out what goes on behind the scenes in order to bring this eclectic community-based festival to life. When we speak to Lisa over Zoom, it’s just three weeks until the next edition of Supersonic. Despite mentioning several setbacks throughout our conversation (which we’ll get into in more detail later), Lisa’s aura is equally as calm as it is enthusiastic. She clearly relishes talking about artists, past and present, who have shaped her personal tastes and who ultimately lead her to start Supersonic.

Originally from London where she felt “spoiled” in terms of her exposure to alternative music and culture, Lisa moved to Birmingham in 1994 to gain independence and to study a fine art degree. As a young teen, she says she frequented the weekly Feet First indie club night at the Camden Palace (now KOKO), which she considers to be her “grounding” for getting into music. “Looking back on it, it was probably dodgy as hell,” she smiles, “but I was 14 and me and my friend Lisa – we were called ‘The Two Lisas’ – got to see so many live indie bands; from Doctor and The Medics through to Lawn Mower Death and Meat Beat Manifesto.”

Lisa also recalls her parents playing Black Sabbath and Jethro Toll on the stereo on car journeys as a child, hearing the Songs of Leonard Cohen and The Velvet Underground around the house, and obsessively playing the 7” vinyl of Kate Bush’s iconic ‘80s hit ‘Babooshka’ from her Dad’s record collection. She also cites the Pixies, The Cure and Sisters of Mercy as big influences during her teens. This exposure to so many varied and contrasting musical genres seems to have been the catalyst for everything that she did next.

When she moved to the midlands, she remembers being “shocked” at the lack of cultural spaces in Birmingham compared to London, where she had constant access to gigs and art exhibitions. “But when there isn’t anything there, you [can] create from nothing,” she adds wisely. “It’s the perfect environment to create something yourself.” She began frequenting DIY punk all-dayers in places like Bradford, Leeds and Nottingham, before she started hosting gigs herself in the basement of the student house that she shared with 11 other people. “It sounds glamorous, but it was a very rundown house, and because of that, it gave us absolute freedom,” she comments. She quickly gained a solid reputation in the DIY scene for being a great promoter; always paying bands fairly and making sure they were fed and looked after, something she states was a rarity on the local scene at the time.

From these early experiences, Lisa gained the essential knowledge which led her to start up her own official arts organisation. In 1999, alongside friend Jenny Moore, she co-founded Capsule, a platform dedicated to producing events and exhibitions for curious audiences in Birmingham. As well as championing new and exciting alternative art, Capsule serves a more personal purpose for Lisa. “Although I’d studied fine art, my passion was music and being a music fan, but I was also incredibly, painfully shy,” she reveals. “I wasn’t someone that stood at the front of a gig or wrote a zine. I didn’t feel like I had a voice particularly. I think putting on gigs gives you a purpose. It gives you a reason to be sociable, but kind of on your own terms.”

This new found confidence, combined with an eye-opening trip to Barcelona’s Sonar Festival in 2001, laid the foundations for Supersonic. “I was absolutely blown away by the fact that the festival happened at the MACBA, which is the Museum of Contemporary Art in Barcelona,” she recalls about the galvanizing live music experience. “At that time, Jenny was doing a photography degree and I had done a fine art degree, so we wanted to bring together that sort of visual aesthetic [too]”. Seeing UK experimental-noise artist V/Vm (aka Leyland James Kirby) play inside a beautiful Gothic church seemed to blend these two things together for Lisa.

“V/Vm were dressed as a chicken and a love heart. They had those big Spanish hams and they were on turntables with cabbages and meat juice was flying out into the audience,” she shares. Fast forward two years later to 2003, and Lisa and Jenny had booked V/Vm to play the first ever Supersonic Festival at The Custard Factory in Digbeth, alongside Coil, Pram, The Bug with The Warrior Queen, LCD Soundsystem and metal bands from the local scene.

“It was a really eclectic mix and I guess at that time, no one else was really doing that,” Lisa comments. She acknowledges that festival line-ups were generally geared towards a single genre, and that the electronic music scene in particular felt inaccessible to lots of fans. “It was very boy-sy…you had to be an ‘expert’ to be into electronic music at that time, it just felt really hostile,” she shares. Lisa wanted to create a “welcoming space” with no rigid genre barriers and no gate-keeping – something that GIHE felt was one of the most impressive and coherent elements of last year’s Supersonic festival.

Creating and sustaining something as original as Supersonic has been equally as life-affirming as it has been challenging for Lisa, for numerous reasons. In 2012, her creative business partner Jenny took a step back from Capsule and Supersonic in order to focus on her young family, which was an eye-opening experience for Lisa, who became the sole Director, Artistic Director and CEO. “I think because we ran it together, we were almost oblivious to risk, because we had each other, so we just made stuff happen,” she shares. “Jenny was absolutely brilliant at fundraising and the budgets and as I used to call it ‘the adult stuff’. So suddenly, I had to inherit this weight of responsibility and it was also at a time when the Arts Council really didn’t understand the value of experimental music or adventurous music.”

Lisa explains that Supersonic received “tremendous pushback” from Arts Council England in the early days of applying for funding. She tried to make it clear in her applications that at its core, Supersonic was about supporting an ecosystem that was not too dissimilar to theatre. Theatre brings in ticket income, but this is subsidised to support the production and the making of it – whether that’s a West End musical or an obscure performance piece. She had to lobby hard to make sure that the festival was not misinterpreted as a purely commercial venture.

“I started to understand the role I can play in terms of supporting more emergent artists and making sure that the line-up is diverse,” Lisa extrapolates. “I think in the early days, just making the thing happen was an act of resistance. Being two young women in that male-dominated field was enough of a thing. Whereas now, I wouldn’t say we’re in a comfortable position, but there’s an inner confidence to be able to kind of make sure that that’s part of our mission and our goal with Supersonic.”

This year’s edition of the festival continues that vital mission. Between BACKXWASH, Divide and Dissolve, Zahra Haji Fath Ali Tehrani, BUÑUEL and Penelope Trappes (to name just a few), Supersonic’s line-up seamlessly sets an exciting and necessary precedent for diversity in all its forms. Lisa has always been meticulous with her curation though, and this is something that’s developed over time. “Because we’re really limited in our budgets, that makes me have to be extremely creative and really careful in terms of who I’m programming, so there’s no filler and it means that everyone’s there for a reason,” she shares. “There’s an un-said relationship between each artist and the journey that I’m trying to create within a day or over the weekend.”

Despite this dedication and attention to detail, Lisa confesses that she is not immune to imposter syndrome. She has always felt that her relationship to music has been based on gut feeling, obsessive listening and intuition, rather than technicalities like being an “expert” producer or a music-maker herself. When asked if she has ever seriously considered giving up Capsule and Supersonic because of this, she humbly replies that despite the numerous sleepless nights, it doesn’t really feel like a “job” to her – it’s more of a calling.

“I think probably now I’m unemployable,” she laughs. “I’ve done this for 20+ years, I don’t know anything different. When it actually comes together and you have that weekend where there’s that sense of community and you’ve been able to create a sort of critical mass for relatively unknown artists, and your audience feels part of something that feels really important, like we’re part of this global community – that spurs us on for the next year.”

It’s not just imposter syndrome that Lisa has had to battle. In recent years, the gentrification of the Digbeth area where Supersonic is held has caused her immense stress. In the inaugural days of the festival, Lisa remembers Digbeth feeling a bit like the “Wild West” as it had minimal infrastructure in terms of proper street lighting or cash points. This allowed her and her team to build their own infrastructures within the warehouse spaces they rented and to create the “blueprint” for Supersonic, but it’s a different story today.

“As the years have gone on, developers have come in and taken those spaces, and developers are not supportive of culture, especially outsider or counterculture,” she comments. Lisa has had to compromise to keep Supersonic alive. In 2024, for the first time ever, they had to switch to using a commercial venue – The O2 Institute – due to developers making it too difficult to use their original, formerly independent space. This year, Lisa has shared the news that Supersonic’s Marketplace – the festival’s hub for food, selling records, socialising and DJ sets – will have to relocate to Zellig Building for similar reasons.

These changes are not just inconvenient logistically, they incur costs that Lisa is desperately trying not to pass on to the festival’s loyal attendees, but this is becoming increasingly difficult. “Supersonic is meant to be a celebration of the underground, but if it’s too expensive, people can’t attend,” she states, but she is battling hard to make sure this doesn’t happen. “We have started a solidarity ticket scheme where people who can afford to pay a bit more, buy a more expensive ticket and that means that we can work with partners like O121 Queercore and Decolonise Fest to do massively subsidised tickets to their networks. So we’re trying, but it sort of feels now like Supersonic happens against all odds, which is quite exhausting. I’d say this year, I’ve never known it as hard as ever before, in every element of putting a festival together. It feels like this year may well be the nail in the coffin of it being in Birmingham,” Lisa sighs, “unless something really radically changes in terms of whether the council starts to intervene in some way.”

Lisa’s determination in the face of such adversity isn’t just admirable – it’s vital. She has invested time and money creating a platform where artists and fans feel truly valued, and in today’s climate of grassroots music venues closing on a fortnightly basis according to The Music Venue Trust, that cannot be underestimated. She has spent time nurturing authentic relationships with the artists who play Supersonic, leading them to not only return to play, but to also become fans of the festival themselves.

“Last year, we had Bonnie Prince Billy headlining, but he came because he was interested in seeing ØXN and Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe,” Lisa shares. “This year, we’ve got Poor Creature performing, who is Cormac from Lankum [who played last year], and Ian Lynch and Maxine Peake are coming back to DJ too. They want to come as punters, which is really lovely. We’ve built up relationships with people like Stuart Braithwaite (Mogwai) and Elizabeth Bernholz (Gazelle Twin) over the years, so they feel that if they’ve got a new project, Supersonic’s the place for them to try that out, which is great.”

Connecting curious minds and cultivating pure, primal connection to music is what the festival is all about. Unfortunately, we can’t attend Supersonic this year, but we urge you to buy a ticket and immerse yourself in all of the weird and wonderful creations that the festival has to offer. You won’t be disappointed.

Photo Credit: Cat Dineley

Kate Crudgington
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INTERVIEW: NYX (Sian O’Gorman)

By harnessing the sublime power of the collective human voice, the NYX drone choir have crafted a unique form of psychedelic rebellion. Originally formed by New Zealand-born composer and director Sian O’Gorman, the ensemble – made up of multi-talented vocalists, artists, musicians and movement specialists – use electronics to layer and manipulate their vocals, creating their own idiosyncratic sounds and expanding what a traditional choir is capable of.

I have witnessed the immense musical alchemy of NYX many times. I saw them perform their collaborative work Deep England with Gazelle Twin – originally at London’s Oval Space back in 2018 – and I’ve seen them showcase their own work at Southbank Centre’s Queen Elizabeth Hall. Their sound enraptures, inspires and intrigues the more that you engage with it. The collective have now harnessed this deeply emotive listening experience on their debut eponymous solo album, which they have just released via their own label.

NYX is a body of work that has been years in the making. When I spoke with collective members Alicia Jane Turner and Philippa Neels on our Soho Radio show back in 2023, they hinted that we could be expecting a solo record in the near future, as well as sharing stories about their experiences of recording the soundtrack for the Diablo video game. The last time I spoke with Sian O’Gorman was in 2021. We took a deep dive into her own experiences of listening to and creating music, as well as her inspirations for forming NYX.

A lot has happened since then – most recently Sian curated the score for acclaimed BBC drama Dope Girls – but one thing that has remained a constant is her holistic and deeply human approach to singing. This becomes especially clear when we begin discussing the vocal workshops that she facilitates: “Tones, Bones and Drones”. The workshops are for singers and non-singers of all ages and genders and are focused around using the voice as a “vessel for connection”. They have been a part of her practice for a long time.

“Singing is free and anyone can do it anywhere. It seems such a shame that it’s locked out of most people’s lives,” Sian reflects. She finds it strange that people will go to a gig or a club and move their bodies and dance together despite not being technically “good dancers,” but the idea of singing or using your voice in public doesn’t seem to be as socially accepted. “It’s always made me really sad that there aren’t many public spaces for people to use their voice in a way that isn’t speaking,” she continues. “Speaking is very cognitive and thought based and heady. The way that some people speak and use their words is very embodied, but I would say in general, we’re only really using a very small percentage of our voices.”

Sian is quick to acknowledge that sometimes these opportunities – like joining a choir – are limited to those who have a technical singing ability or who can read music, but she also thinks there are other barriers to this type of expression too.

“There’s something about the voice that’s just so intimate to people,” she extrapolates, visibly passionate as she does so. “Every single time you think you’ve said something wrong, or used your voice in a way that wasn’t how you planned, or you made a noise that you think you shouldn’t have – the actual muscles shut down. They contract and it becomes harder to loosen them. So when people say they can’t hold a note, well, it would be the same for me if one day I just woke up and decided I was going to do the splits. It’s going to take me a while to get my muscles ready to build up to that. Your voice is just the same. The muscular system just needs attention and practice, and playfulness as well.”

Playfulness is at the core of what Sian encourages during her workshop practices. She explains that some attendees are too nervous to even make a noise or maintain eye contact with others when they first arrive, but the nurturing atmosphere she creates with the group gently encourages them to express themselves, culminating in a collective “sigh of relief” once they have overcome these fears.

“It always devastates me when I hear someone saying ‘Oh I’d love to come to your workshop, but I can’t sing’ – and I’m like, ‘mate, that’s the whole fucking point!’,” she laughs. “There’s so much benefit in using your voice. There’s neuroscience research and research across all sorts of mental and physical health issues that proves that singing – both on your own and in groups of people – is incredibly beneficial to your own well being.”

“Everyone that comes to these workshops has some level of vocal tension that they are working with. So it’s a very beautiful meeting ground [where we] drop all of our expectations and just have a playful time together, remembering the essence of being human and the essence of using your voice. Being in a group with others [like this] always teaches me that humans do have the power to create good stuff. We can make good things together really easily.”

Together with her fellow choir members, Sian has captured this “essence” on NYX’s spectacular debut self-titled solo album. Inspired by the duality of the mythic ancient goddess they share their name with – who personifies night, but gave birth to light and day – the ten tracks that form the record take listeners on a breath-taking journey through the vast spectrum of human emotion.

NYX use their ‘Bright Tongues’ in unison to inspire a deep sense of ‘Awe’ within their listeners, shifting seamlessly between celestial sounds and potent bursts of primal noise. It was important to Sian to capture the complexities of NYX’s sound in this way, as she didn’t want the collective to be viewed through a singular lens, both musically and aesthetically.

“I think especially after Deep England and the work that we did with Diablo the computer game, it was becoming quite clear that we were being cast as these very cool, very dark witches,” she shares. “I really love that, and that’s very much a big part of me and of us – but I think it’s very limiting to just have that dark witch connotation and description when it’s women and gender non-conforming people using their voices in ways that aren’t traditional. It’s quite easy to just be like ‘you crazy witches’ when really I think there’s so much more breadth and so much more possibility in embodying all of the spectrum of emotions. So through this project – because we’re presenting our own body of work – we can choose what colours of that spectrum we want to share with the world.”

This freedom has bled into all areas of NYX’s solo record, from the “breadth” in sound that Sian describes, to the vibrant eye-catching album artwork created by NYX member Shireen Qureshi. Sian believes that her friend and collaborator has managed to capture the “deeply psychedelic” quality of NYX’s sound through her art.

“[Shireen’s] paintings just draw you into this really intensive, magical, liminal space and they shock me a little bit sometimes,” Sian reveals. “She really dances this line between the psychedelic and the very human, and I think that’s the other thing; a lot of this music is deeply human. It’s been crafted and manipulated through electronics, but it is very viscerally human sounding.”

“I think the colourful aspect of it is [also] really important to me, because I really visually see music,” Sian continues. “When I’m composing, or when I’m listening, or when I’m performing; it is a very visual, quite psychedelic, quite altered state of consciousness. So it felt really important to get those colours in. It’s really for people to go on their own personal journey with it. One of my favourite things ever is people sharing a story about what they saw or imagined [when they were listening to our music]. I think that’s the benefit that comes with having music that doesn’t have any kind of specific lyrical content.”

Talking about this visual element and feeling of transience that underscores NYX’s music prompts a formative childhood memory for Sian. “I remember being at school, and the teacher would put on a piece of classical music and didn’t necessarily say what it was, then they got the class to write down what they imagined was happening and that’s always stuck with me as being a very powerful way of consuming music. Offering it to people. They can sense what frequencies we’ve put in from our bodies into the music, but then it’s up to people to kind of interpret that as they will. It’s the same for us when we’re performing it and the same for me as I’m listening to it – a lot of these songs we’ve been performing for six years now – and some of them just mean a totally different thing to me than they meant six years ago.”

This shape-shifting extends into the physical positions that NYX assumed when they were recording the songs for their debut album, particularly for the track ‘Awe‘. “I always love recording in a circle,” offers Sian. “It’s not technically a very good idea and it’s actually really annoying to mix because you’ve got ten different microphones, but I like the energy of standing in a circle. I think it’s got that kind of ancient connective magic and the focus inwards is really powerful.”

“So, we were all standing in a circle and I just had the synth part running on a loop and then everyone went round and improvised and occasionally I’d get people to kind of blend together and sing over the top of each other. So in a way, it really felt almost like a sharing circle, so someone would just share and then everyone would hold them in that and be fully focused and fully present with that person until they’d shared what they’d needed to share. I think the version [of ‘Awe’] that you hear on the album is six minutes, but we probably did that exercise for about forty-five minutes, which is a really magical way of doing it. There’s probably about four or five different versions of that song that we could have made.”

Another song that demonstrates NYX’s unique collective talents is ‘Silent Union’. Sian describes the moment of getting the song to sound “perfect”, but she doesn’t feel fully comfortable with that word, as NYX don’t aspire to be “perfect” in any way, shape or form.

“I think that’s also another thing that makes us slightly different from most vocal groups – people aren’t chosen based on their capacity to blend with others, we’re all in the group together because everybody has their own personal musical vocal practice and electronic practice as well. In most choral groups, certain timbres of voice would be chosen for their capacity and their way of making sure the collective sound was even. So when we’re all singing together, I think it’s really nice that you can hear individual voices pop out from one another.”

This is one of many things that Sian is proud of about NYX’s debut album. She is evidently enthused by the fact that this body of work has developed in a natural way and how it’s harnessed what she believes to be something that feels “uniquely us”. She also acknowledges that releasing a record on their own label has come with its challenges. She speaks with a deep sense of gratitude about the community of friends and professionals who helped bring NYX’s creative vision to life, including Philippa Neels, Andrew Ellis, Isis O’Regan, Elizabeth Bernholz, the team at State51 and many, many more. She also shares that learning about and interacting with the technical infrastructure of the digital platforms that listeners use to engage with, share, and consume new music has left her “struggling” at points.

“I really wanted to do it just as us, and not go through anyone else. But then you start doing it, and you’re like ‘Oh, this is why there’s offices full of people working on one release’”, she laughs, reflecting on the process. “I think a lot of the time, it’s shown me just the kind of annoying social media barriers that get put on you unless you’re already at a certain level [as an artist],” she shares. “Apparently, it’s much easier to get your streaming numbers up if you get playlisted and get pre-saves on your songs, but in order to get pre-saves on your songs, you have to have 10,000 minimum listeners. So there’s functions on the apps that you can’t even use until you’re at a certain level. A lot of the time, it does feel like the algorithm is against you. You’re making all this stuff and you’re like ‘is anyone even hearing it?’ so it’s been hard, actually. It’s been a lot harder than I thought.

But, in saying that, a lot of it is just kind of surrendering to the fact that we’ve made this body of work and we’re really proud of it, and all the people that were involved absolutely love it as well. It’s just so lovely to hear the feedback from the people that we know. Again, coming back to that thing of people listening to it and being like ‘wow, I was listening to this and I felt like this…’ that to me is the most important thing. We’ve also had this television soundtrack for Dope Girls come out at the same time, which has been a massive learning curve as well. It’s really nice to have both of those bodies of work come out together, so now that if someone does search for us, they can hear a big range of sound.”

NYX will be demonstrating their expansive collective talent at their upcoming headline show at London’s ICA on Friday 23rd May. It will be a celebration of their new album and I can’t wait to experience it.

To close our conversation, I ask Sian what advice she would give to artists who are considering releasing their music on their own label. True to form, she actively encourages people to connect with each other. “Just try to get out there and meet people,” she offers warmly. “Talk to people, connect with people, and see how you can collaborate and skill swap. It’s just finding people to help you, finding these relationships and keeping them going.”

Buy tickets for NYX’s London headline show at ICA on 23rd May here

Listen to NYX’s debut album here

Follow NYX on bandcamp, Spotify, Instagram, X & Facebook

Photo Credit: Joseph Lynn 

Kate Crudgington
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GIHE Highlights: Supersonic Festival 2024

In her welcome note to Supersonic Festival goers in the official printed guide for this year, Artistic Director Lisa Meyer expressed her aspirations for the three day event: “I hope that Supersonic will be a space for people to find comfort in one another, catharsis in music and a celebration of an amazing community and extraordinary art.”

Get In Her Ears have been long-time admirers of Supersonic – which has been running for 21 years – so we were thrilled to finally be able to attend the Birmingham-based festival in person for the first time this year. We are also delighted to confirm that Lisa’s introductory words transcended from the page into a real life experience for us.

Described as “championing experimental and adventurous music,” we found Supersonic to be an immersive and fascinating encounter and not just because of the eclectic performances from artists on the line-up, which included Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy, Dame Area, Senyawa, The Body & Dis Fig, Melt Banana, F*Choir, Matana Roberts, GROVE x Taliable x Toya Delazy, OXN and Daisy Rickman.

The complimentary events and workshops running alongside the festival’s live music programme – Do.om Yoga‘s guided meditation, Stuart Maconie’s Freak Zone Quiz, zine-making with Decolonise Fest – provided attendees with the opportunity to indulge their curious nature in a vibrant but low pressure environment, which is something we value highly at Get In Her Ears. We could wax lyrical about the power of Supersonic infinitely, but we’ve tried to condense our experience of the festival into eight highlights, which you can read below…

THE NONE are our new favourite band

With Kaila Whyte on vocals (Blue Ruth, Youth Man), Gordon Moakes on bass (Bloc Party, Young Legionnaire), Jim Beck on guitar (Cassels) and Chris Francombe on drums (Frauds), THE NONE are an experimental super-group in our eyes.

Formed at the start of 2023, the band bonded over hours spent in their rehearsal room making noise and discussing shared obsessions together. The elusive nature of their name reflects their creative approach; ego-less experimentation and open collaboration. This passion comes screaming through in their live performances. Their set at Birmingham’s O2 Institute was a riot of abrasive punk cacophonies that completely pulverized the senses.

The lung capacity on Kaila – who admitted she was nervous between songs whilst sipping on a can of Liquid Death – was deeply impressive. She ripped through each track, grasping her double mics, thrashing around as she unleashed her voice into them. THE NONE have recently shared their debut EP, MATTER, on bandcamp – but you NEED to hear their music in the flesh to fully appreciate its raw, tenacious spirit.

(Photo Credit: Robert Barratt)

Gazelle Twin is in a league of her own

Having already witnessed her shape-shifting Black Dog performance live at Bush Hall in London last year, we were expecting great things from Elizabeth Bernholz aka Gazelle Twin as she brought her shadowy spectacle to Supersonic. We were not disappointed. Falling somewhere between a dark lullaby and intense sleep paralysis, her varied and visceral electronic textures came with bass drops that made speakers and shoulders shudder.

With her face on full display – a first for the artist who usually veils her features – the crowd were entranced by Bernholz as she sat in her vintage armchair, her dynamic vocals untethering the atmosphere like the paranormal forces that originally inspired the inception of Black Dog. Her theatrical performance of her fourth record was an exquisitely raw, haunting exhibition of the power of intangible fear and we were completely gripped by it.

(Photo Credit: Catherine Dineley)

Maxine Peake has a great interviewing technique

Despite insisting she would “never be doing it again”, listening to actress Maxine Peake in conversation with Elizabeth Bernholz (Gazelle Twin) was a real festival highlight. A last minute change to the programming – Peake was originally supposed to be speaking with Throbbing Gristle’s Cosey Fanni Tutti, who withdrew due to a family emergency – her improvisational interviewing style and fun anecdotes gave the event its relaxed and informal atmosphere.

Peake and Bernholz have collaborated on projects together before – a stage adaptation of 1970s TV play Robin Red Breast and an installation titled We Wax We Shall Not Wane at The Horror Show exhibition at Somerset House – which meant they had a natural rapport when sharing stories about these works. What shone throughout their conversation was Peake and Bernholz’s joint commitment to authentic self-expression through art, and their desire to make the stages and institutions they work on into more inclusive and equal spaces. To simplify our thoughts: a pair of total legends.

(Photo Credit: Robert Barrett)

(Photo Credit: John Convery)

Decolonise Fest are a force for change

Get In Her Ears have been following the vital work of Decolonise Fest – a DIY collective of organisers, activists and musicians who advocate for punx of colour – for some time now, so we were thrilled to see that they were partnered with the festival, as well as hosting a workshop on the rooftop of Supersonic’s hub venue XOYO.

Titled “Decolonising Publishing Through Zine Making” the informal event was run by an inviting team who helped attendees create their own mini zines. Between the cutting, sticking, folding and drawing, Decolonise members explained that the process of zine-making has historically been vital for DIY artists of colour. It has helped them to express themselves authentically and provided an alternative means of connection and promotion in media spaces that are often biased or whitewashed.

Decolonise are hosting their own festival in London at Signature Brew Haggerston this weekend (13th-15th Sept). Spider, Cuurls, Dogviolet, Grunt, Lilith Ai, Maya Lakhani plus loads of other acts will be playing across the 3 day event. Tickets are available here.

(Photo Credit: Ewan Williamson)

Brìghde Chaimbeul’s experimental Celtic sounds were beguiling

Offering something completely unique to the festival’s line-up was Isle Of Sky native Brìghde Chaimbeul. Her performance at the O2 Institute was a captivating blend of immersive drone sounds, courtesy of her traditional Scottish smallpipes and her hypnotic Gaelic vocals. Her visual accompaniments – monochrome footage of a dancer in casual clothes performing a traditional Scottish dance in the empty highlands – beautifully complimented Chaimbeul’s music, which breathes new life into ancient sounds that have been in danger of being forgotten. Her music held deep resonance with the crowd, who gave her their full attention throughout the set.

(Photo Credit: Robert Barrett)

We want to form a coven with Tristwch y Fenywod

We only managed to catch three of their songs, but we were spellbound by Welsh-language gothic rockers Tristwch y Fenywod (which translates as “The Sadness Of Women”). With Banshee screams worthy of their namesake, we were deeply impressed by the delightfully discordant sounds that Gwretsien Ferch Lisbeth (Guttersnipe, Petronn Sphene), Leila Lygad (Hawthonn) and Sidni Sarffwraig (Slaylor Moon, The Courtneys) created together – led by Gwretsien’s innovative multi-stringed dual-zither.

The band released their self-titled debut album at the end of August via Night School Records and we’re looking forward to giving it the deep listening experience it fully deserves.

(Photo Credit: John Convery)

Emma Ruth Rundle enchanted us

American songwriter and visual artist Emma Ruth Rundle celebrated the 10th anniversary of her first official album, Some Heavy Ocean, with festival-goers at the O2 Institute. She performed the tracks from her impassioned debut with unwavering focus, her emotive vocals drifting through the busy venue. This is the first time we’ve seen Rundle live and we were moved by her rich acoustic guitar sounds and majestic-yet-melancholic voice.

(Photo Credit: Robert Barrett)

From the artists, to the fans, to the people behind the scenes – people really commit to the Supersonic experience

Circling back to the community sentiment that Artistic Director Lisa Meyer expressed in her welcome note that we cited at the beginning of this feature – it was endearing to witness an unwavering level of commitment manifest itself in so many different ways across the weekend at Supersonic Festival.

As first-time attendees, we were struck by the friendliness of everyone. This ranged from quizzing with total strangers at the Freak Zone Quiz and ultimately making friends from it, to a casual chat we had with a woman who attended the zine-making workshop, the willingness of other individuals and organisations to interact with us at networking events, through to the security guard who spotted the Nine Inch Nails logo on our t-shirt and promptly struck up a fun conversation about the band after proudly displaying his “NIN” tattoo in solidarity. Maxine Peake even mentioned how much she liked our tattoos while we were waiting for the loo. By the end of the weekend, we didn’t feel like newcomers anymore.

International acts on the bill such as MC Yallah x Debmaster (who were unable to perform last year due to visa issues), Tokyo grindcore legends MELT BANANA and experimental harpist Mary Lattimore were granted incredibly warm welcomes by their full crowds. The fluctuations in genre and volume between these eclectic acts did not deter festival-goers from giving their full attention to the stages, reiterating that Supersonic truly is a place that nurtures fan-bases that love adventurous music.

Ahead of the event, we interviewed Elizabeth Bernholz (Gazelle Twin) about her Black Dog performance and her anticipations for her return to Supersonic, where she wholeheartedly cited it as her “favourite festival in the UK” and now, we feel a similar way.

Like many arts communities, despite its passion and commitment, Supersonic is unfortunately not immune to struggle. Lisa Meyer also noted in her intro that we are living through “heavy times”, plagued by uncertainty on global and local scales. It would be awful to see the community spirit of Supersonic Festival crushed because of accelerated gentrification in Digbeth – so please consider supporting and attending the festival next year if you can.

Freak Zone Quiz (Photo Credit: John Convery)

Supersonic Networking Brunch (Photo Credit: John Convery)

Artistic Director Lisa Meyer (Photo Credit: John Convery)

MC Yallah x Debmaster (Photo Credit: Alice Needham)

Mary Lattimore (Photo Credit: Alice Needham)

The Body & Dis Fig (Photo Credit: James Thompson)

Melt-Banana (Photo Credit: Catherine Dineley)

Kate Crudgington1 Comment

GUIDE & PLAYLIST: Supersonic Festival 2024

EVENT: Supersonic Festival

WHERE: Digbeth, Birmingham, UK (O2 Institute & XOYO)

WHEN: 30th August – 1st September 2024

TICKET INFO:
Weekend ticket: £170 / Day tickets & 2 Day tickets: £40-£110

Full info about other ticket options available here

GENERAL INFO:
Supersonic Festival returns with another eclectic and exciting programme of alternative music and events for their 2024 line-up! Described as “championing experimental and adventurous music and creating an inclusive and joyful space where all are welcome,” the team have organised another three days of arts and intrigue for curious festival-goers to immerse themselves in.

DJ SETS & EXCITING EXTRAS

Alongside the music line-up (which you can read more about below), Supersonic have a vast selection of extracurricular activities to get involved in. There will be DJ takeovers all weekend, featuring actress and activist Maxine Peake, Boss Morris (a group of female creatives & musicians who share a progressive vision of morris dancing), Poor Creature, Hesska and Nyahh Records. On Saturday night, there will also be a huge gothic camp queer party courtesy of Homobloc x Fvck Pigs.

BBC 6Music presenter Stuart Maconie will return to host the iconic Freak Zone pub quiz, and there will be an ‘In Conversation’ event with two icons: Maxine Peake will be speaking with performance artist Cosey Fanni Tutti about her life and art on 31st August.

WORKSHOPS

FYI: Entry to most of these workshops is included in the Supersonic Festival ticket – a festival ticket for the relevant day (or the full weekend) is required

On Saturday 31st August, Do.om Yoga will return to the festival for a “Cosmic Resonance” meditation workshop (tickets here). Decolonise Fest (a collective of DIY punx of colour) will also be back hosting a “Decolonising Publishing Through Zine Making” workshop on the XOYO rooftop. You can also join Birmingham-based creative Maisie Violet Rees at her drop-in “Upcycled Objects” workshop, where she will assist you in creating your own unique upcycled objects.

On Sunday 1st September, experimental folk artist Debbie Armour (Burd Ellen) will be leading the “Ghost Songs – Exploring Revenant Ballads” workshop. Attendees will learn about Revenant Ballads – “manifestations of grief occupying a third space — an ambiguous zone between this life and what is beyond.” This event it currently at capacity, but you can sign up for the waiting list here. You can also try Transfer Printing with Shelanu, which translates as ‘belonging to us’. They are a collective of migrant and refugee women working with Craftspace to develop craft and social skills, and you can join them in making your own Supersonic key ring or pendant to take home with you.

LINE UP & RECOMMENDATIONS

As always, there are so many excellent bands and artists on the Supersonic line-up that it’s hard to pick favourites. But, at Get In Her Ears, we focus on female, non-binary and LGBTQ+ talent, so we’re putting the spotlight on sets from eclectic artists like Brìghde Chaimbeul, Dame Area, Daisy Rickman, Jacken Elswyth, Mary Lattimore, MC YALLAH & DEBMASTER, The Body & Dis Fig and Womb x Water.

You can listen to their work on our accompanying Spotify Playlist at the end of this feature. We also have a more fleshed out list of artist recommendations below…

GAZELLE TWIN

Having already witnessed the spine-tingling sensation of Elizabeth Bernholz aka Gazelle Twin’s live interpretation of her latest album Black Dog at Bush Hall in London, we can’t wait to relive it all again on Friday night at Supersonic. The electronic artist’s fourth record is an exquisitely raw, truly haunting piece of art, on which Bernholz reflects on her experiences with the paranormal, postpartum depression and the powerful fears and inner forces that direct us through life. We spoke to the artist about her anticipations for this year’s festival and much more in a recent interview, which you can read in full here.

TRISTWCH Y FENYWOD

Tristwch y Fenywod – which translates as “The Sadness Of Women” – are a Welsh-language gothic rock power-coven. Conjured from the experimental underground of Leeds, the collective take inspiration for their songs from bog bodies, flickering landscapes and queer enchantment. Formed of Gwretsien Ferch Lisbeth (Guttersnipe, Petronn Sphene), Leila Lygad (Hawthonn) and Sidni Sarffwraig (Slaylor Moon, The Courtneys), their music has been described as the “rediscovered unholy grail of edgy, atmospheric, occult feminist goth.” The dual-zither which leads their music is Gwretsien’s innovation, giving them a unique Celtic darkwave sound. Their first record will be released this summer by Night School Records. Catch them at the festival on Friday.

GROVE PRESENTS: TOYA DELAZY & TALIABlE

Returning to Supersonic festival for the second time, electronic artist & producer Grove will be presenting their new collaborative project featuring Toya Delazy and TaliaBle. Fascinated by each artist’s ability to blend genres like afrorave, Hip Hop and punk, Grove shares their expectations for the eclectic set:

“Toya Delazy and TaliaBle are two of the most incendiary, powerful and badass live performers I’ve ever seen, so to host them head to head for a soundclash at Supersonic is a dream. Both are pioneers in fusing genres, with Toya’s statement ‘afrorave’ combining their Zulu roots with heavy rave music, to TaliaBle’s punk-drenched hip-hop setting rooms into a frenzy. If my past experiences with these two is anything to go by, this SOUNDCLASH is going to be heavy, energetic and WILD. I feel Supersonic Festival is the perfect place for this big, bad extravaganza. It’s one of the UK’s best melting pots of sonic wizardry, with the best audience to match.” The performance will take place on Friday.

EMMA RUTH RUNDLE

To celebrate the 10th anniversary of her first official album, Some Heavy Ocean, American songwriter and visual artist Emma Ruth Rundle will be performing the record in full on Saturday night. Described as “a collection of impassioned, cathartic songs, exorcising the ghosts of one of life’s dark detours,” we’re looking forward to hearing the artist’s melancholic sounds live for the very first time.

ØXN

ØXN are an experimental Irish super-group consisting of Percolator’s John ‘Spud’ Murphy and Eleanor Myler, Lankum’s Radie Peat and multi-instrumentalist Katie Kim. The first signing to Ireland’s iconic label Claddagh Records in 18 years, ØXN dig deep into the earth and excavate tales of love, loss, longing, revenge and ritual. Blending these traditional folk elements with their eclectic sonic textures means that their set on Sunday is not one to be missed.

F*CHOIR

F*Choir are firm favourites here at Get In Her Ears. They are a queer, all-genders community choir led by composer and multidisciplinary artist Jenny Moore. Collectively, they use their voices to sing songs about gender, sexuality, freedom and rage, rejecting the use of traditional sheet music and gendered voice parts. We have witnessed the raw joy and power of their live performances many times, and we recommend you do the same on Friday evening.

MATANA ROBERTS

Critically acclaimed avant-jazz practitioner Matana Roberts will be bringing their radical “panoramic sound quilting” to Supersonic on Sunday. Roberts creates a “sound art tapestry” from a mixture of field recordings, loop & effects pedals, saxophone sounds and spoken word recitations. On their most recent offering from their Coin Coin project, Roberts creates an “adventurous and socially engaged definition of what jazz can mean today, maintaining a deep and substantive engagement with narrative, history, community, and political expression within sonic structures.”

UPCHUCK

Festival-goers will be able to immerse themselves in Atlanta five-piece Upchuck’s boisterous blend of punk, psych and hardcore noise on Saturday. Formed from connections made in skateboarding, construction, and teenage delinquency, the band offer their listeners the opportunity to transcend the chaos of everyday existence by swirling around in the pit, sweating the stress out together.

THE NONE

Another experimental super-group here! With Birmingham and Supersonic Recordings’ Kaila Whyte (Blue Ruth, Youth Man) on vocals, Gordon Moakes on bass (Bloc Party, Young Legionnaire), Jim Beck (Cassels) on guitar and drummer Chris Francombe (Frauds), THE NONE are a live force to be reckoned with. They formed at the start of 2023 and bonded over hours in the rehearsal room together, making noise and discussing shared obsessions. The elusive nature of their name reflects the band’s creative approach; ego-less experimentation and open collaboration.

 

MELT-BANANA

Tokyo grindcore icons Melt-Banana will be pulverzing festival-goers ear drums on Friday night. Since they formed in 1992, the band have released numerous albums, toured worldwide with bands like Melvins and Napalm Death, and won high profile fans in Steve Albini, Kurt Cobain and Lou Reed. Their relentless, unclassified heavy sound will make for a manic and unique live experience.

MODIFIED YOUTH

This DIY two-piece from Shropshire know how to pack a punk with their grunge and Riot Grrrl inspired sounds. Armed with a drum set and a guitar, they deliver politically-charged, gritty anthems fuelled by power chords and pure DIY enthusiasm. Catch them at the festival on Saturday.

For more information visit Supersonic Festival’s official website

Check out our Supersonic Playlist below, featuring some of the female, non-binary and LGBTQ+ talent playing the festival this year!

 

Kate Crudgington
@kate_crudge

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