Brum's Blog

Music: Supersonic Festival at Custard Factory in Birmingham

This was the second time I have been to Supersonic and was only able to attend the Saturday show.

Supersonic is a festival specialising in ‘experimental’ music and presents band from many different genres. You can listen to Funeral Doom, Prog, Folk, Avant Jazz and Grindcore as well as many others genres with many bands that fail to fall into any regular categorisation.

Below are a list of the acts watched in order plus rating, with links to myspace where you can listen to them.

Rose Kemp 8/10 -- Played solo and combined beautiful folk style vocals with heavy doom laden guitar. http://www.myspace.com/rosekemp
Flower/Corsano Duo -- Just caught the very tail end of the set. http://www.myspace.com/chriscorsano
Remember Remember 7/10 -- A very young band (or am I just getting old?) that combine different instruments and looped samples to create a hypnotically beautiful soundscape. http://www.myspace.com/rememberremember
Master Musicians of Bukkake 10/10 -- Combining ethereal chanting with doom laden guitar and power drumming, impossible to adequately describe but awesome to experience. http://www.myspace.com/mastermusiciansofbukkake
Nissennenmondai 8/10 -- Japanese all-girl trio provided a masterclass in drumming overlaid with superb guitar rhythms. http://www.myspace.com/nisennenmondai
Skullflower 7/10 -- Could not get close as were on a small stage which was packed to overflowing, sounded great though. http://www.myspace.com/skullflowervibes
Marnie Stern 6/10 -- Female lead punk trio, sounded okay but nothing special. Although tracks on myspace do sound great. http://www.myspace.com/marniestern1
The Accused 5/10 -- Most disappointing band for me. Seemed out of place and better suited to a metal festival, although I felt like I had seen many better metal bands before. http://www.myspace.com/kingsofsplatter
Bobby Previte VS Benton-C Bainbridge 7/10 -- Combining impressive playing of an electronic drumkit triggering samples with live VJ-ing --

Thorr’s Hammer 7/10 -- Doom Metal with a female lead singer who makes Angela Gossow sound like she has voice of an angel -- http://www.myspace.com/thorr39shammer
Zu 9/10 -- Jazz Metal, I hate saxophones and I really hate jazz but I absolutely loved this band. http://www.myspace.com/zuband

And last but not least…

Monotonix 11/10 -- Missed the start, but very quickly realised that the entire band were in the crowd when the singer was raised aloft wearing rainbow striped swimming trunks with matching socks. Then the entire drumkit was lifted up and moved to a different section of the crowd for the next song. At various stages the entire band were lifted aloft whilst performing with different people holding each piece of the drum kit aloft so they could be played, all whilst the whole crowd seemed to have turned into one giant mosh pit. I like most of the crowd were a little drunk by then so I do not remember too much about the music other than the drummer did not miss a note and the played a sabbath cover. Possibly the craziest concert experience ever! http://www.myspace.com/monotonix
My videos here from crap camera in phone --