Supersonic Festival 2025 lineup poster
SUPERSONIC FESTIVAL ANNOUNCES FIRST NAMES FOR THE 2025 EDITION
INCLUDING BACKXWASH (UK EXCLUSIVE), RICH(ARD) DAWSON,
MARIA W HORN & SARA PARKMAN present FUNERAL FOLK (UK EXCLUSIVE), MOIN, MERMAID CHUNKY, DIVIDE AND DISSOLVE,
WITCH CLUB SATAN (UK EXCLUSIVE) AND MORE
The initial Supersonic line-up as follows:
AUNTY RAYZOR | BACKXWASH | BRIDGET HAYDEN AND THE APPARITIONS | BUÑUEL | CINDER WELL | DEATH GOALS | DIVIDE AND DISSOLVE | HEDGLING |
HIRS COLLECTIVE | MARIA W HORN & SARA PARKMAN present FUNERAL FOLK | MEATDRIPPER | MERMAID CHUNKY | MOIN | OMO | POOR CREATURE |
RICH(ARD) DAWSON | WATER DAMAGE | WITCH CLUB SATAN | ZU
Supersonic 2024 was a thrilling weekend pulled off beautifully with rave reviews – and will return to Digbeth, Birmingham for one more year on the 29th – 31st August 2025, making space for moments of collective joyful communion and true escapism against a backdrop of a world in turmoil.
Despite facing some challenges last year brought on by gentrification and a precarious festival landscape, I was truly humbled by the incredible response to the festival; it felt triumphant in the face of adversity.
We are living in abhorrent times, so now more than ever we must cherish our creative spaces. Supersonic Festival is committed to doing things differently and to putting a spotlight on lesser-known artists, to challenge the commercial logic of wider music festival culture with an alternative and more risk-taking programme and by presenting some of the most vital artists of the underground. I am so grateful that our audiences and artists trust in us. This is what keeps pushing the festival forward.
Lisa Meyer, Artistic Director of Supersonic Festival
Backxwash Photo by Méchant Vaporwave
For 2025, Supersonic welcomes back Zambian-Canadian producer and rapper Backxwash with open arms, as a UK exclusive performance of her forthcoming album, Only Dust Remains. This first release outside of her critically-acclaimed album trilogy showcases her evolution into a broader and more diverse sonic landscape.
Supersonic was a great experience!! The energy from the crowd and the attention to detail from the organisers made our first UK show unforgettable. The festival has an incredibly unique curation of many talented artists and fosters a community-driven environment. I’m so grateful to be returning this year to perform my upcoming album and look forward to this year’s lineup.
– Backxwash
Alongside Backxwash, Rich(ard) Dawson will also be performing music from his new album, End of the Middle. Richard Dawson’s music echoes with the voices of the past, present and future. Following many memorable appearances on Supersonic line-ups gone by, Supersonic is delighted to welcome him back for a special performance with drummer Andrew Cheetham.
Funeral Folk is a collaboration between Swedish artists Maria W Horn & Sara Parkman. Performing in the UK for the first time, a singular and ritualistic musical exploration of death and grief. Alongside these meditations on death, Funeral Folk also embraces themes of renewal and reincarnation, with celebratory undertones woven into its complex compositions.
Funeral Folk Photo by Gustav Broms
Witch Club Satan is an occult, feminist Black Metal trio from Norway who identify as witches, and invite their ancestors, and the women who were burnt on stakes to scream through them on the stage. The lyrics are written and performed as spells, and the concerts form a ritualistic, holistic experience, with extreme visuals and sensory elements. Supersonic is proud to host their first UK show.
Moin are a three-piece experimental outfit from London, whose members, while never having played Supersonic Festival as Moin, are no strangers to its stage. The group is comprised of Tom Halstead and Joe Andrews of the experimental duo Raime (Blackest Ever Black, RR), whose own immersive sound has graced the Supersonic stage in the past, alongside the endlessly inventive percussionist Valentina Magaletti, known for her work with Tomaga, Vanishing Twin, Holy Tongue, and Ondatta Rossa – all projects that Supersonic Festival have been fortunate to host in the past.
Witch Club Satan by Helge Brekker
Supersonic exists increasingly as a political act as much as a festival, and when times become dire, it’s important we have music which channels our fears and anxieties into cathartic rage and noise. HIRS Collective are here to do just that, a dynamic, shapeshifting ensemble rooted in individualisation and anarchist ethos. Death Goals will bring the queercore fury, with a cacophony that combines post-hardcore, screamo and noise rock. And Divide And Dissolve are returning to perform from their forthcoming album Insatiable. Takiaya Reed will provide floor-shaking, life-affirming drones, in music that is heavy and beautiful. Divide and Dissolve’s music is an acknowledgement of the dispossession that occurs due to colonial violence – it honours ancestors, opposes white supremacy and calls for indigenous sovereignty. Insatiable in particular is an album about love, and an urgent call to imagine a better world before it’s too late.
Supersonic will also be host to a performance from the doom cabaret collective OMO, a band featuring members of iconic Scottish acts like Mogwai, The Twilight Sad, Desalvo, Aereogramme, and Stretchheads. Water Damage are a Texas-based droning supergroup of sorts, composed of experimental veterans from projects including Spray Paint, Black Eyes, Swans, more eaze, USA/Mexico, and more. Adding to the heaviness of the lineup are Meatdripper (featuring Kaila Whyte of THE NONE), an entity summoned from the remnants of punk, experimental, and noise rock bands. Forged in the industrial haze of Birmingham, this band was never meant to exist – Supersonic hosted their debut live performance last year and couldn’t resist bringing them back for more.
Mermaid Chunky Photo by Simon Pizzey
Supersonic aims to help attendees unload from the heaviness of the world by bringing the party. Mermaid Chunky will be joining the festival for an expanded performance which can only be described as a kaleidoscopic, hypnotic dance ritual of joyous chaos. They will also be the guest artists performing at the Supersonic Kid’s gig. Nigerian sonic trailblazer Aunty Rayzor (Nyege Nyege) will be delivering commanding rap verses and catchy pop hooks, driven by exuberant bass, playful rhythms, and unmatched energy. Buñuel will return to the festival, featuring Eugene S. Robinson (formerly Oxbow), whose truly wild noise rock takes the listener to extreme places in unpredictable fashion. There’s also Zu, an atypical Italian trio of drums, electric bass and baritone saxophone, who blend math rock, no wave, punk, jazz, and grindcore into a sonic explosion.
Aunty Rayzor Photo by Mathieu Insa
Joining the programme, Supersonic have provided a selection of some of the most exciting folk acts in the underground today. Those include Cinder Well, the project of multi-instrumentalist and songwriter/producer Amelia Baker whose songs carry a heaviness in their words and atmosphere as opposed to distortion. Hedgling are an Irish duo consisting of Natalia Beylis and Willie Stewart, whose music utilises found objects and dissolving tapes loops to evoke the parallel worlds that co-exist around, above and beneath us. Poor Creature are Cormac Mac Diarmada (Lankum), Ruth Clinton (Landless) and John Dermody (The Jimmy Cake). They take songs of love, loss and the supernatural from Irish and American traditions, reimagining them in new arrangements that are by turns sparse, dreamy, psychedelic and propulsive. Bridget Hayden and the Apparitions will also play. Hayden is an experimental musician whose haunting, atmospheric sound draws from the landscapes of Todmorden, West Yorkshire. With a voice weathered by time, her music blends aching folk abstractions with immersive, reverb-soaked textures.
Rich(ard) Dawson by Sally Pilkington
PRAISE FOR THE 2024 EDITION:
★★★★★ THE GUARDIAN
“One of our most diverse, exciting and forward-thinking festivals.” – THE WIRE
“As long as festivals as uplifting, as communal, and as defiant as Supersonic continue to defy the odds, there is hope.”
– THE QUIETUS
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