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This weekend the annual Supersonic Festival takes over Birmingham’s Custard Factory arts complex for a sixth year, this year spreading its bill of avant-garde and mainstream-defying acts across a full three days.

With 2007’s event – featuring Fuck Buttons, Mogwai, Wolf Eyes, Om, SunnO))) and more (review) – named Plan B magazine’s festival of the year, and Battles returning to the event in a headline role – they previously appeared in 2005 rather lower on the bill – this year’s Supersonic is set to be the biggest and best yet. Also scheduled to appear: Harmonia, Gravetemple, Rolo Tomassi, Oxbow, Wooden Shjips, Harvey Milk and Beestung Lips. And many many more.

DiS talks to organisers Capsule about the jewel in their promotions crown, profiles a selection of must-see acts participating this here, and gives you the full timetable. All in one neat and tidy article. Anyone would think we were fans… fans enough to sponsor the festival for a second year. Read on, digest, attend, enjoy, feel free to buy DiS a drink.

Hello Capsule – please introduce who you are.

Capsule is Lisa Meyer and Jenny Moore.

Supersonic is now a firmly established event on the domestic festival scene – you must be delighted to see it so revered, too. What initially sparked the desire to put on the first Supersonic? Looking back on it, did you think then, at the end of the first one, that it was an event that’d run and run?

It’s great that we've been able to build the festival over the years, both in scale and in ambition, and that it has garnered so much support. The first Supersonic was just a one-day event with Coil *and LCD Soundsystem* as well as a host of other bands, and we really had no idea that it would grow in the way that it has, attracting an audience from all over the UK and further afield. We were very much inspired by Sonar Festival in Barcelona, which we attended in 2000; its use of venue, the city setting and the approach to programming as well as attracting a niche audience worldwide, which in turn made up a large audience.

*Just how early do you begin planning a Supersonic – immediately after the previous one? Or do you allow yourselves a little time off from it? Do you regard the event as the jewel in the Capsule crown, given your other shows home and abroad? *

We work on Supersonic all year round – it’s reflective of our year-round program, as we're constantly searching out interesting acts to book for the festival and spreading the word. It’s also about using it as a means of promoting acts from Birmingham, particularly when we do showcases at Sonar or South By Southwest. Although Supersonic is the biggest event we do and takes up the most time, all our activity is important to us, and putting on a show to 60 people is as valuable in many ways.

With each year I’ve been the bill seems to expand its reach to attract acts from right across the alternative spectrum – is there a mindset you adopt when approaching bands to participate, or is it within reason a simple case of if you like a band, you’ll ask that band to play?

There definitely isn't a ‘Supersonic type’ of band, as we've both got very eclectic taste. However, we are interested in non-mainstream music. Supersonic is reflective of Capsule’s year-round program and that has included everyone from Squarepusher to Merzbow, from Meg Baird to Melt Banana. The guiding principles of Supersonic are that artists should be engaging and inspiring, or a spectacle, and many are all three. We hope that the line-up reflects a music fan’s approach for other music fans to enjoy.

*Where do you see Supersonic in the festival scheme – as a sister to ATP? Is it an event more in tune with continental festivals, or are there domestic events that you can see have inspired Supersonic in some way? *

We're massive fans of the ATP festival, and love the fact that it’s a festival for our peer group and like Sonar you don't have to camp in a muddy field – we’re too old for that. We've incorporated films and exhibitions from the start as that is where our personal interests lie, having both come from art backgrounds. It’s important that each festival has unique qualities and doesn't replicate a ‘festival’ bill; we've never been interested in producing a generic summer festival. Where we might be similar to festivals like Roadburn, ATP and Sonar is that we are all true fans and have a real love for what we do, which hopefully shines through.

From the past festivals, what have been your favourite memories of Supersonic? Are there little things that you think will always stay with you, be they of a purely positive nature or because something’s gone horribly awry?

Well, of course, the 2005 bomb evacuation will always stay with us – that was really pretty frightening as the security team jumped in their cars and left Jen and I to evacuate over 1,000 people, whilst the whole of Birmingham city centre had been closed down. But those stories become legendary. There are always highlights, too many to mention – it all seems quite surreal at the time because we're so busy, so it’s great to look back at photos post the event.

2008’s event hasn’t even passed yet, but do you already have ideas for who you’d like to ask for next year’s Supersonic?

No, that would be telling! We're always open to suggestions though.

*What are your tips for a Supersonic virgin, in order for them to get the very best out of the three days? *

The whole point of the festival is that for every band you know there should be a few that you don't, go and explore, dip into different rooms and check stuff out. There are also a couple of other exhibitions on around the Digbeth area including a show of Fluxus work at Vivid, well worth a look. Be adventurous, make new friends and of course try out the homemade cake.

As stated above by Supersonic’s own organisers, the object of attending the festival is to explore new music, to see bands you’ve not heard before. So do make an effort to catch all that you can, and peek a look at the other non-musical attractions – there’s plenty of art on show, films to watch and cake to nibble. Here though, DiS picks five acts that we reckon you’d be super-silly to not check out.

Harvey Milk

From Athens, Georgia, Harvey Milk’s latest LP Life… The Best Game In Town (review) proved the foursome – currently including ex-Melvins/Earth man Joe Preston – have lost none of their ferocity, first heard back on 1994’s My Love Is Higher Than Your Assessment Of My Love Could Be. Sludgy, rumbling basslines and body-rattling percussion are topped by vocalist Creston Spiers’ truly demonic howls – if Aaron Turner’s inhuman tones ever gave you nightmares, this’ll make those dreams a reality. Despite the onslaught of their cacophonies, there’s an accessible edge to Harvey Milk too – riffs are torn right from the ZZ Top songbook from time to time, and their live shows are unpredictably schizoid – your eyes and ears may burn for ten, but you’ll be lifted clean off the ground for the next five.

MySpace

Cutting Pink With Knives

As reported here, Supersonic 2008 will be Cutting Pink With Knives’ final show on these shores, as the London glitch-punk trio hang their booty-bumping electro grooves up for good after a festival date in Belgium days after their Birmingham appearance. Never seen them? You’re in for a treat – just don’t think before you shake or you’ll never get into it. Best experienced though they are on the floor, at eye level to their audience, the trio should be a cracking opener on Supersonic’s outdoor stage on Friday night – especially if they do the right thing and leap down from their lofty vantage point. Dance along like you mean it, and send Cutting Pink off into the sunset with grins all over their smashing mugs.

MySpace

Harmonia

Originally active between 1973-76, last year German Krautrock icons Harmonia reformed and since then have wowed gig-goers who’ve witnessed them; after already making an appearance at ATP, it seems natural for them to visit Supersonic for the first time. Formed around the trio of Michael Rother of Neu! and Hans-Joachim Roedelius and Dieter Möbius of Cluster, Harmonia can count Brian Eno as an ex-member and have, to date, released three studio LPs, the last (Tracks & Traces) not seeing the light of day until 1997, despite it being recorded in 1976. A live album was released last year, whetting appetites for the band’s live return proper – they performed in the UK for the first time back in April, at London’s Quuen Elizabeth Hall. Expect their Supersonic set to be one of the most-watched of the whole weekend.

MySpace (unofficial)

Beestung Lips

It wouldn’t be right to preview Supersonic without focusing on at least one act participating that calls Birmingham home, and hometown live acts don’t come any more acerbic that punk foursome Beestung Lips – anyone who caught them at our DiScover Club back in March will know they’re a hugely entertaining but highly volatile lot. Riffing in a manner not dissimilar to Hot Snakes and The Jesus Lizard before them, the quartet are more than capable of leaving their audience breathless, if not battered, physically, into a sort of pleasurable submission. The band’s six-track EP of last year, Songs To And From An Iron Gut (review), was actually released by Supersonic’s organisers – clearly they’ve faith in their fireworks.

MySpace

Efterklang

With their last LP Parades earning a rare 10/10 on this site – find the review here – it should come as no surprise to find Danish outfit Efterklang among our picks – their sumptuous, symphonic arrangements, mixing traditional instrumentation with plenty of electronic effects, are best experienced live, too, so their Supersonic performance is one we’re truly excited about. If you’ve never seen them, expect music that aches and moans with all the heart of Arcade Fire at their most broken, but with added interest from clicks and beats courtesy of their computerised on-stage comrades. DiS has witnessed grown men bawl their eyes out to the band before, so don’t go thinking any in-attendance gentleman is proper soft should their waterworks start up during the Danes’ show. It happens to us all, sometimes.

MySpace

Friday July 11

Factory Club

9.30 Drumize

10.30 Dokkebi Q

11.30 Bogulta

12.30 Ove Naxx

1.30 DJ Scotch Egg

2.30 Marousa

Outside Stage

9.15 Cutting Pink With Knives

10.00 Rolo Tomassi

11.00 PCM feat Karl from Bolt Thrower

12.15 Dälek

1.30 DJ/Ruptre feat Jah Dan

Saturday July 12

Factory Club

4.45 Alex Tucker

6.15 Heatseekers

7.45 Justice Yeldham

9.00 Beestung Lips

10.15 Noxagt

11.45 Oren Ambarchi

12.30 Rough Trade DJs

1.30 The Attrociator

Outside Stage

4.15 Cath & Phil Tyler

5.30 The Owl Service

6.45 Magnetophone

8.30 Efterklang

10.00 The Heads

11.00 Wooden Shjips

12.45 Harvey Milk

Space 2

4.30 Black Sun

5.45 The Courtesy Group

7.00 Guapo

8.00 Thrones

9.15 Oxbow

10.45 Fuck Buttons

12.25 Battles

Plus theatre programme – see Capsule for details

Sunday July 13

Outside Stage

2.15 Einstellung

3.15 Max Tundra

4.45 Parts & Labor

6.00 Errors

7.15 Red Sparowes

8.45 The Oscillation

10.00 ZX Spectrum Orchestra

11.15 Harmonia

Space 2

2.30 Transitional

3.45 Orthodox

5.00 Asva

6.30 Earth

8.00 Fucked Up

9.15 Kikuri

10.45 Gravetemple

Plus theatre programme – see Capsule for details

DiScuss: Going? Excited? THIS EXCITED? DiS is fairly excited… we’re just annoyed there’s still so many days between now and then. Roll on Friday and a train from Marylebone to Brum.