It is almost without fail that Birmingham’s Supersonic Festival is guaranteed to be one of my annual musical highlights – and despite it still only being April, I suspect that it will be the same again this year. As is usually the case, the line-up of this celebration of the weird and distinctly wonderful was one where only the most musically literate would be aware of more than a handful of the performers. However, it was again a set-up where most would have gone home having discovered a new favourite band. This time, mine would most certainly be the raw and visceral Prostitute. That said, there was plenty of other fine fare from the likes of MMM, Oxn, Peiriant and Ameretat – to name just a few of those on stage.
The Supersonic Festival has been a standout, yearly event in the Digbeth area of the UK’s second city since 2003, which started as a one-day shindig of total musical strangeness. Since then, it has become a two-day and more recently a three-day annual celebration. In recent years, however, Digbeth has been invaded by property developers, intent on gentrifying this traditionally bohemian area. Inevitably, this has caused rents and the other costs of organising anything for the outsiders, the freaks and the weirdos that put the area on the map in the first place, to skyrocket. Hence, putting on events like music festivals and finding appropriate venues has become something of a trial. All of which meant that in 2026, Supersonic became a more boutique affair than usual with a reduced, two days of music. That’s not to say that the quality of the entertainment suffered one bit though.
Ordinarily, it’s the last day of Supersonic that provides the mellow and more laidback entertainment, after a weekend of ear drum abuse. However, this year, Day One eased the assembled audience into the celebrations in a more gentle (but not too gentle) manner than usual.
Getting things started, with their ambient and gentle drones and back projections of standing stones, were MMM. Temple bells, violin and electronics built beautiful and calming soundscapes from a dark stage bathed in red light. However, as things moved along, a more sinister edge took over, and their set took a wild plunge into eery folk horror territory. They were followed by Greet’s hippy harmonium for a dose of Wicker Man-type vibes and Thorn Wych’s somewhat other worldly loops and bowed instruments made from tree branches that were anything but comfortable.
From here, the volume was turned up substantially, as a revitalised Bong II took the stage for a set of heavy and atmospheric ambient metal, powered by feedback and a fair amount of reverb. Trans antifascist hardcore punks, Traidora (pictured above by Robert Barrett) then erupted on the main stage with a howling wind tunnel of speedy tunes that awoke the mosh pit for the first time during the weekend. They were then followed by the intense industrial noise of Lucifer Sky that battered ear drums and left the crowd distinctly unsettled and frayed.
As the evening progressed, however, the sounds again became somewhat quieter if not particularly calming. Milkweed’s hobo campfire, folk-blues tales were dramatic and unsettling with a sniff of Karen Dalton and even Nick Cave about them. Songs drawn from the Ulster song-cycle were raw and harsh, digging deep into the past, while shining a light on the timeless spirits that mould our world.
It was Oxn’s (pictured above by Robert Barrett) headline set, however, that proved to be the major highlight and a particularly fine ending to Day One with a performance that drew from their debut album but also threw in a couple of new tunes.
Warming things up with the slow and measured storytelling of “Cruel Mother” and all dressed in red clothing, Radie Peat’s crew performed a set that was both mournful and melodic but driven by Ellie Myer’s strong percussion. Tales of love and loss came tumbling from the stage, with “O Death” being amusingly introduced by some warm words from Radie: “Birmingham in the sunshine is a glorious thing”. This was then followed by another new tune, “Moon” before a final pairing of Scott Walker’s “Farmer in the City” and atmospheric murder ballad, “Love Henry”.
Day Two of Supersonic began, for me, with the gentle sounds of Welsh husband and wife duo, Rose and Dan Linn-Pearl of Peiriant. Seemingly spooked to have an audience waiting for them to play before they had even taken to the stage, their violin, guitar and electronics powered tunes, such as “Agor Llygaid” and “Pwls”, were a tonic and gentle easing into the day. This was followed by the more sinister ambient drone and dark electronics of Feeo’s set, which was decidedly more mournful and bleak.
However, at this point the volume was very much turned up once more for noisy industrial thrash experimentalists, Microplastics’ (pictured right by Sam Frank Wood) debut performance. In fact, the band hit the stage with only five new songs to their name and 96 back, aya and Jennifer Walton were often obliged to describe their tunes rather than name them. Indeed, on describing one tune as being about “running out of air”, 96 back was asked what it was called. “You can find out when the fucking record comes out!” was his somewhat abrupt but entertaining reply. Another tune was then described as being “about carbon monoxide poisoning” but sounded rather more like being caught in the path of a very angry rhino, while “Kick Stupid” began in an almost ambient manner before being ramped up to take in some serious aural violence.
Ameretat’s (pictured below by Sam Frank Wood) snappy 30-minute set mirrored something of Canadian post-hardcore kingpins, Fucked Up’s sound and was suitably speedy with vocals suggesting that both the singers were being chewed up by malfunctioning industrial machinery. This all went down very well and got some of the crowd moving, with a mosh pit eventually opening up in front of the stage.
With members drawn from the Persian diaspora, they were also the first artists who had much to say about present events in the big wide world before lurching into their fiery final tune, which was possibly called “Just Had a Revolution”. This wasn’t the last that we heard of the on-going political shenanigans though, as Ancient Hostility’s traditional, close harmony folk set had plenty to say about standing up to injustice and fascism - with particular things to say about the clueless flaggers that have felt the need to decorate the lampposts of Birmingham and to intimidate those who objected in recent times.
Saving the most impressive to the end, the weekend’s final offering from the main stage was the US-Arabic noise rockers, Prostitute. Welding post-punk and Middle Eastern sounds, their set was muscular and punishing and very much my high point of the festival. With songs drawn from their Attempted Martyr album, they got plenty stamping their feet and flailing around as vocalist Moe Kazra egged on the crowd with his shamanic performance and bassist, Dylan Zaranski stalked the stage like a man possessed.
“I’ve come to dance. So, let’s dance” urged Kazra and more and more bodies joined the throng clapping and leaping around to the groove. “Put up your hands, hands, hands” he commanded during final tune “All Hail” and plenty did just that, as let go of their inhibitions and surrendered to Prostitute’s raw and confrontational tunes.
And then it was all over for another year. However, let’s just hope that 2027 sees the Supersonic Festival on a firmer financial footing which returns this celebration back to three days of fun and games. Birmingham deserves nothing less.
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