Supersonic 2009

Birmingham’s 7 year old Supersonic festival has gradually expanded to a 3 day line-up but thankfully the best attractions are usually reserved for Saturday. Since All Tomorrow’s Parties descended into self-parody, it has become probably the most credible alternative as the UK’s best festival of international underground music (even if it does feature an unhealthy amount of metal-based garbage). So once again, the afternoon of the 25th of July found me heading up the motorway to the Midlands suppressing the impending trauma of the first coach service back to London at 5am the following morning.

Without a doubt, the highlight of the night was Nisennenmondai, an instrumental Tokyo female 3 piece (like any of that matters). Using the traditional guitar-bass-drum line-up, they assembled heavily repetitive extended pieces which ended up sounding more like disco-tinged primitive techno than the “math-rock” described in the programme.  In fact, the least satisfying element of their set was when they resorted to a safer no-wavey rock sound for the last couple of numbers. If anything, at its best their sound was in debt to Manuel Gottsching’s guitar experiments such as E2-E4 (which foresaw the birth of minimal dance music) and also to the heavily sustained playing of Michael Rother in Neu! Anyway, enough of my yakking – they’re a highly individual and enjoyable combo that deserve to be seen.
Other highlights were the Flower/Corsano duo whose electrifying Shahi Baaja and drum improvisations kicked off the afternoon and thankfully avoided blowing out the power like the last time I saw them. Thought Forms proved a hit with their blend of distorted shoegaze melodies a la MBV/Mogwai. Kim Hiorthoy delivered a sweet set of chunky hyperactive techno but sadly only to a room of about 30 or 40 people as most were off witnessing yet another incarnation of Sunn 0)))’s dull doom racket (Thorr’s Hammer). Final word goes to Skullflower with their cranium obliterating wall of noise that resembled “Metal Machine Music” forced through a meat grinder. To describe it as music would be a long stretch, it’s not even a drone as there aren’t any real notes to speak of.  There’s nothing to be “enjoyed” here (although a perverse few will no doubt attest to differ) but like witnessing a burning building, it holds a hypnotic compulsion that kept me rooted to my spot for 30 minutes or so and that’s only to be saluted I suppose.

Tune into Rhubarb Radio for streams of some of the weekend’s sets and see ya there next year…