The Triumph Of Women: Supersonic 2024 Day One
What’s this all about? Read my Supersonic preview.
A portal into sonically daring territory… © Robert Barrett
I recently watched ‘Rude Boy’, a lacklustre 1980 picture in which concert footage of The Clash is mixed with a bunch of disjointed narratives about a drunk, useless roadie. It proved that, as actors go, Joe Strummer was a very good songwriter. Despite centring on London, the film incorporates documentary footage of anti-fascist protests in Digbeth, then one of the most deprived areas of Birmingham. In the background of these shots was Digbeth Town Hall. It looked very familiar, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it at the time.
45 years after that footage was taken, in a now-gentrified Digbeth that houses trendy restaurants, artisanal vintage stores, and plenty of studios, that building is now home to the O2 Academy, linking it to its legendary Brixton namesake. For 3 days across August and September 2024, in this building and the nearby XOYO, my bones would rattle, my brain would fizz, and my ears would hear things they had never heard before.
All thanks to Supersonic Festival – legendary among explorers of the sonically daring.
F*Choir. © Ewan Williamson
My festival began at XOYO where, after perusing the kind of market at which an experimental music festival attendee could easily max out a credit card in half an hour, a decent chunk of London’s 60-strong F*Choir kicked things off with a largely acapella performance. Mixing covers with original material, they take a non-traditional, feminist approach to choir singing. Parts are not gendered, auditions are not held, and sheet music is disregarded. This could risk their sound being a bit too loose, but their infectious enthusiasm carried them through. Combining this attitude with a songbook that eschews Trad. Arr. (whoever that is) for the likes of Meredith Monk and, performing ‘La Vita’ in my highlight of the set, Beverly Glenn-Copeland, the result was a far more interesting choral experience than typical, and an unexpectedly upbeat start to the festival.
Gazelle Twin. © Catherine Dineley
With an 8-minute walk between venues, I made haste to the Academy to catch Gazelle Twin. Promoting her recent album ‘Black Dog’ (look for it in album-of-the-year lists), we heard Elizabeth Bernholz overpower a cold, chilling soundscape with haunting, fearful lyrics as dark as the near-pitch black stage upon which she stood alone. As lights faded up, bearing no small resemblance to the Thin White Duke (Duchess?), she made herself comfortable in an armchair while the heaviest bass I have ever heard in a venue kicked in – a reminder that the power of her music comes not only from her voice, but from her production. The only sonic respite was an interlude where, in what felt like a tribute to electronica pioneer Delia Derbyshire, she seems to build an entire song from a single tape loop. NOW the festival had truly begun in earnest.
Gazelle Twin. © Robert Barrett
Tristwch y Fenywod. © Alice Needham
Back at XOYO, 3 women engaged in silent pagan ritual. The trio, Tristwch Y Fenywod (translates to “The Sadness Of Women”), then lined up behind bass guitar, electronic drums, and box harp, to launch their debut, eponymous album, and delivered one of my highlights of Supersonic. Though based in Leeds, the group sing (and banter) in Welsh, creating a unique sound somewhere between folk-horror and New York no-wave that wouldn’t feel out of place on 80’s-era 4AD or ZE Records. Accompanied with bone-shattering bass from Sidni Sarffwraig and gut-punching drums from Leila Lygad, frontwoman Gwretsien Ferch Lisbeth proved my ongoing theory that anything a guitar can do, literally any other instrument can do better, with a stunning performance blending magickal lyricism with the bewitching sound of zither strings. (I hope to be speaking with TYF to learn more in the coming weeks for In Spite, so stay tuned.)
With such a high benchmark already set, it was inevitable that, while local supergroup The None matched the energy of Shellac with the sound of The Jesus Lizard at the Academy, it wasn’t until UKAEA made their way on stage at XOYO that I felt truly engaged again. Walking on stage to ear-splitting feedback, Dan Jones led an apocalyptic industrial rave, combining spoken word, Asian vocals, and trumpet-based gabber, seamlessly leading the Supersonic crowd to a full-on techno party.
Tokyo’s Melt-Banana are one of the best live rock bands on the planet. Over 30 years after forming, Yaka and Agata continue to bring their explosive, deafening variety of digital grindcore to the people and, in support of their new LP ‘3+5’, they do not disappoint. I’ve been a fan of their live show for so long that it’s impossible for me to judge it impartially, so I’ll let the Academy crowd review them for me – they were the first band of the festival to inspire a mosh pit.
Melt-Banana. © Robert Barrett
Silvia Kostance of Dame Area. © Robert Barrett
Finally, Barcelona duo Dame Area brought a table-full of power electronics to the XOYO stage, transforming their industrial noodlings into dancefloor bangers. The LP they were promoting, ‘Toda la verdad sobre Dame Area’, made a lot more sense in a live setting than as a home-listen. But it’s when their sound became more organic, as Silvia Kostance and Viktor Crux began drumming together, that something more powerful started to happen, and the sound became more hypnotic, tribal, almost ritualistic. Ultimately, it was Kostance’s magnetic presence, her vocals matching the intensity of her presence in the space, imposing her own mosh pit onto a terrified audience, that brought everything together in a superb climax to the day’s events.
Dame Area. © Robert Barrett
6 hours in, Supersonic was already living up to its reputation.
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