The Supersonic Festival 2024, which celebrated its 21st birthday, proves that tradition and experimentation are not mutually exclusive. It reminds us why independent events are so valuable in a commercialized world.

A tall, almost two-metre-high man begins to play the flute. An airy looped melody floats through the O2 Institute space above a rapt audience. At one point, a double bass and clarinet line joins the melody, and finally, the drums. A simple minimalist song, swishing through the space, grows, becoming more monumental and louder. The traditional and light-hearted song ‘Within a Mile in Dublin’ becomes an exceptionally overwhelming and absorbing wall of sound, a repetitive stream of consciousness. “Traditional music is like time travel”, he says at the show’s end. “No one owns these songs on their own”.

It’s John Francis Flynn, the Irishman who plays one of the climaxes of Supersonic 2024. From beneath the stage, he looks like a giant from a fairy tale, and in his hands, his guitar is the size of a ping-pong pallet. Flynn plays traditional music in his own way, which is why another of his songs, one of my favorites from 2024, ‘Mole in the Ground,’ sounds like an anti-establishment protest song in his performance. He plays tradition in his own way.

  • John Francis Flynn
  • Brìghde Chaimbeul

“Traditional music is quite experimental, even in its purest and simplest form,” he tells me over a pint in The Old Crown pub, established in 1368. Flynn mentions artists such as Luke Kelly, The Dubliners, and The Clancy Brothers in the same breath and recalls first avoiding traditional singing for many years. “I’ve come quite a long way from listening to traditional music and playing in traditional bands to thinking about what I can do with it. I think I strike a balance between being a traditional musician and a contemporary musician – the road to experimenting with tradition has not been easy.”

There are quite a few such highlights at Supersonic. One is the concert of Smote – a trance-like, almost metal set that mesmerizes with clutching guitars, steady rhythm, interspersed with flute playing biting into heavy compositions or long-winded vocalizations. Or ØXN, who play once lyrically, once long-windedly and trancey – they’re songs altogether, but they have a darkness, a tinge of their own, which fits perfectly here at the Birmingham festival. Likewise, Tristwch Y Fenwood, who plays in the XOYO space – the darkly trancey post-punk, slightly industrial songs usher in a sabbatical, a ritual in which lyrics sung in Welsh add a charm, a new dimension, a mystery.

Melt Banana’s performance is one of the most decisive moments of the festival, and it knocks me to the ground. It’s hard to believe that they used to play as a quartet and are now halved. Ichiro Agatagra plays aggressive guitar parts, and Yasuko Onuki howls spasmodically into the microphone, playing intense beat-based backing tracks occasionally. It was an extraordinary experience, gripping until the very end. It’s the end of August, and I’ll be thinking from now on, watching the concerts on my return from Birmingham, whether anything impressed me more or less than the Japanese duo, who knock me out with their intensity, energy, and unbridledness.

  • Melt Banana
  • Mohammad Syfkhan

This year’s program is dominated by heaviness, but there are exceptions. Like a fantastic concert of funeral, poignant and touching songs by Bonnie “Prince” Billy, who also didn’t shy away from jokes with his band. Or, the sensual, danceable set by MC Yallah & Debmaster, who didn’t play at Supersonic the previous year because of visa problems and now appear at XOYO to show their great flow, which drew the audience in endlessly. The festival is also a showcase of solo performances: Brìghde Chaimbeul plays madly on the small Scottish bagpipes, drawing out the dark colors but serving them with remarkable lightness and dignity. Gazelle Twin creates a musical performance, attacking with vocal fury in a truly Lynchian mood, sitting on an armchair, with one single lamp as if we were in some mysterious, imaginary, and out-of-context setting.

Mohammad Syfkhan, the Irish-born Kurdish-Syrian refugee singer-songwriter who closes the festival’s final day, plays in an unpretentious way, but with a folk flavour that sets him apart from the rest of the lineup. The trance-like intense beats mesh brilliantly with the virtuoso bouzouki playing – it’s not heavy music, but at the same time, it complements the Supersonic program brilliantly, taking you to another dimension.

  • Gazelle Twin
  • Smote

It is also hard and dense. I see Agriculture for the second time in 2024, and their view of metal – lyrical and ecstatic at the same time – impresses me once again. The majestic walls of sound punctuated by Leah B. Levinson’s vocals are still in my memory today. Likewise, The Body & Dis Fig, to whom I gradually squeezed through the crowd throughout the concert. Music like this needs to be listened to up close; it’s intense and dense. The Providence duo’s heavy metallic beats and thick electronic waves are interspersed with Felicia Chen’s loud vocals.

Senyawa plays with intensity; they are masters at building tension. Rully Shabara, with his extended vocal techniques, and Wukir Suryadi, exploring the possibilities of traditional instruments, build a musical ritual in the huge O2 Institute Hall—on the one hand, emphasizing the rhythmicity of their pieces, on the other, highlighting the sound of the bambuvakir, a homemade instrument. It sounds at once folk, ritualistic, and almost metal.

A very special show is the one played by One Leg One Eye, Ian Lynch of the band Lankum, who appeared at Supersonic a year ago. Drone-like rising waves intensely took over the XOYO space, creating a dark mood through multiplied layers of electronics and vocals. Lynch balances the lightness of folk and the heaviness of metal, which can be heard on Lankum, but also when he plays alone. “For a long time, I wasn’t sure how to bring all my influences and inspirations together. I come from metal and harsh noise scene, something that works alongside traditional music,” he tells me a few hours earlier in an open-air bar next to XOXO. “When I play, I find drones in the music, which are also present in traditional music, but I emphasize them. As a result, I bring what the bagpipes create to the foreground, which makes it sound heavier.”

  • MC Yallah & Debmaster
  • The None

Supersonic celebrated its 21st birthday in 2024. It’s a long story in which I’ve been involved for two years. A well-established event with a loyal fan base, presenting experimental, heavy, innovative stuff, this year very much geared towards the British Isles scene, which I treat a bit as a ‘showcase’ – because for the second year in a row, I come here and get introduced to the most interesting phenomena of the season, which often only make their way to mainland Europe a year later. But that doesn’t mean a festival with such a track record doesn’t have problems. I’d like to see what Digbeth looked like a decade ago, where the festival operates, and where gentrification has been coming in full force for a few years now. I can understand this, as there are many such places in the world, such as the Gdansk Shipyard in my hometown. The festival goes on despite adversity – this year, they were forced to swap one of the venues, 7SVN, for the O2 Institute, a much bigger, more powerful space, with Soulfly playing at another venue on one of the evenings. The theatrical, old O2 Institute, which served as the mission of Carrs Lane Congregational Church in the early part of the century, is hugely impressive during concerts by Smote, Senyawa, or Bonnie Prince Billy – its monumental grandeur and theatricality enhancing their reception.

The strength of what Supersonic does is that it has an audience and artists who enjoy the festival. This is my second time here, and I feel at home. This friendly and casual atmosphere gives right away. It’s been in my head since September, so even six months later, when I’m writing this text, this memory doesn’t go away. Is it still worth covering the festival after all this time? In the space of Birmingham – which I passed by every day from my hostel at the end of the city – it appears as a beachhead of an alternative, an independence that will last indefinitely. But it also shines more broadly. In an uneasy time of all-consuming turbo-capitalism, box office reactivations, grand reunion tours, and hundreds of money poured, it’s a considerable value.

  • ØXN
  • Senyawa