Ariel Sharratt & Mathias Kom (of The Burning Hell) with special guest Shotgun Jimmie present ‘Never Work’!
Working hard or hardly working? The last few years have been a bit of both. In the spring of 2020 Ariel Sharratt & Mathias Kom released an album of contemporary labour songs and were just getting ready to head out on the road with it when… well, you probably remember what happened next. By the time touring had started up again, their attention was geared toward the 2022 album Garbage Island with their band The Burning Hell. Finally, this April, Ariel and Mathias will be bringing Never Work to life, collaborating with visual artist and indie rock legend Shotgun Jimmie in a multidisciplinary show. This tour will be accompanied by a re-pressing of the long sold out Never Work, and the release of a collaborative EP with Shotgun Jimmie, Hardly Working.
The Burning Hell is the ongoing musical project of songwriter Mathias Kom and multi-instrumentalists Ariel Sharratt and Jake Nicoll, often including additional comrades and collaborators. Their densely populated genre-shifting songs are packed with an abundance of literary, historical, cultural, and pop-cultural forebears, heroes and villains, subjects and objects, stories and hooks. They move with heavy rhyme and a light step, incorporating a frequent fixation on apocalypse and ruin into work that celebrates participation in a surprising, delightful, and even occasionally beautiful world. Which is to say they’re good dance partners and they want to dance with you.
The Burning Hell are DIY in the best possible sense—underlining the ‘Do’—their albums and singles manifesting from the edges of the music industry as collaborations with independent labels and publishers, and their years of touring forming connections person by person, show by show, in town after town. They’ve famously ventured to every out-of-the-way island and inland neglected by the less adventurous, emphasizing presence and connection across latitudes, longitudes, and time, affirming a commitment to the political power of sharing music. It is a profoundly optimistic gesture, by way of killer tunes, exuberant hooks, and joyful live performances.
“Never Work is by far Kom’s most impassioned and political lyrical statement to date. Augmented by Sharratt’s superb, understated singing and musicianship, it shows just how relevant protest music is, and how much fun it can be” – Folk Radio
“A smart, amusing and affecting record” – Americana UK
