My Fellow Sponges come from Galway on the salty west-coast of Ireland. The band is the creative union of two singer-songwriters. Donal McConnon with his lyrically-led folk ditties and Anna Mullarkey with her lush and elegant synth-pop sound. The two started a band together after performing together as actors on a number of theatre shows in university. They were later joined by David Shaughnessy (drums) and Sam Wright (bass). 2013 saw the release of their debut album Bonne Nuit. Mostly focused on a more rural sound, the single from it which received the most attention was This Dream Song, mainly for the highly-ambitious, surrealist backwards video which accompanied its release. The follow up Something Like Light (2014), displays a much more reflective, piano-driven sound from a band ever-willing to explore new possibilities with sound. Last year’s single, The Cold Hand, has been the band’s most successful release to date, gaining nationwide radio-play and convincing music lovers to flock to their shows during the festival season.
My Fellow Sponges have collaborated with story-tellers, comedians, dancers and brass-ensembles. They have played entire shows improvised, under the moniker, Community. Their live concerts are lively, unpredictable and intimate. They comfortably switch from eerie-electronica to hip-shaking-bossa-nova all with a dramatic flair that stay with Donal and Anna from their theatre days.
The Burning Hell is the alter-ego of Canadian songwriter Mathias Kom, and the band has been on the road in one form or another since 2007, playing everywhere from the chaos of Glastonbury to the loneliness of the Arctic Circle, popping up in bars, festival tents, living rooms, abandoned bunkers, and a mental asylum in rural France along the way. Musically, the lineup and sound of the Burning Hell has been ever-changing, running the gamut from introspective folk to hyperactive rock and roll. This means both that no two Burning Hell records sound alike, and that the band can adapt to its surroundings like a karma of anthropomorphic chameleons, taking the audience on a supermarket-cart ride through hooky, upbeat pop songs, dark ballads about pet euthanasia, and anthems for barbarians, economic conferences, and love.
In 2017, The Burning Hell is set to record and release their eighth full-length album, embarking on a tour that will take them from the Rocky Mountains to the Mountains of Mourne, across the Tyrrhenian and the Norwegian Seas, and many other places in between. Always restless, The Burning Hell looks forward to a year of new sounds, new songs, and new people to share them with.
Named after a poem about a haunted canal lock, The Spook of the Thirteenth Lock combine elements of the Irish folk tradition with modern experimental rock sounds. They have released two albums to date, 2008’s eponymous debut and 2012’s “The Brutal Here and Now” on Transduction Records.
Spook Guitar Orchestra:
“Lockout” and “Bullet in the Brick” are two new large-scale works by The Spook of the Thirteenth Lock about the 1913 Lockout and the 1916 rising respectively. For these projects the band are joined by an electric guitar orchestra, bringing this unique sound into the world of contemporary Irish traditional music. “Lockout” is a grand departure for the band, bringing an epic volume and scale to their unique blend of contemporary and traditional sounds, and adding a sharper, more political voice which addresses the recent anniversary of the Lockout, and its relevance today.
This september the Clonakilty International Guitar Festival acknowledge the Centenary of 1916 with a performance of a piece written by the critically acclaimed genre defying Trad/prog metal band Spook of the Thirteenth Lock for 16 guitars.
The Spook Guitar Orchestra will perform ‘The Bullet in the Brick’, material based on the story of the 1916 rising comprising 3 parts
1/ A Destroyer on the Liffey – The story of the rising told with a focus on the Helga, the gun boat that bombed Dublin city centre.
2/ The Bullet in the Brick – describing Francis Sheehy Skeffington’s murder by British troops
3/ A Proclamation – elements of the proclamation set to music
In addition to this the Spook Orchestra will perform ‘Lockout’ a 50 minute piece on the 1913 lockout which gives context to the 1916 rising – The rise of socialism in Dublin led by Connolly and Larkin, arising from life in the worst slums of Europe at the time leading to the formation of the Irish Citizen Army, key fighters in the rising and the source of the radical aspirational nature of the proclamation, the parts that ring truest today.