CLODAGH SIMONDS has recently returned to recording after a long absence. Her "career" began with the now-legendary Irish psych-folk band Mellow Candle at the age of 15, and sessions for 70s icon Mike Oldfield, but by her late twenties, she had begun to find silence as compelling as sound, and so went a little quiet.. . . . . in 1999 she was once again heard "singing gorgeously" (Wire Magazine) Syd Barrett's setting of the James Joyce poem "Golden Hair" on Russell Mills/Undark's album Pearl & Umbra, and she hasn't stopped since. Stephen Malkmus covered her 1970 song Poet & The Witch on the e.p. "Dark Wave" in 2003, and more recently, she has sung for Current 93 and Matmos. Commenting on an advertisement for a three-day seminar which promised to "locate your own true voice", she remarked "Perhaps the crucial thing is to let your voice locate you. And perhaps that takes a little longer."

COLIN POTTER (www.icrdistribution.com) has been involved in electronic & experimental music for many years. Based at his own IC studio, he has recorded, produced and distributed a wide array of projects and has gained a reputation for innovative mixing & sound processing, working most notably with Steven Stapleton on many albums by the renowned Nurse With Wound, as well as with artists such as Current 93, The Hafler Trio, Ora, RPM, Organum, Monos, Paul Bradley, Kiln, Andrew Chalk, Bass Communion and Jonathan Coleclough. Several solo works have also been released. His idiosyncratic techniques are not confined to the studio — he also performs live, both solo & with other collaborators & has appeared at many events in Europe & the USA.

ROGER DOYLE (www.rogerdoyle.com) has been called the Godfather of Irish electronic music. He spent ten years working on his magnum opus Babel which was released on a 5-CD set in 1999. It is a celebration of the multiplicity of music languages. He is co-director of the music-theatre company Operating Theatre and is constantly surprised that he is a composer.

HUGH O'NEILL is a composer/musician from Dublin with a taste for electro-acoustic adventure. As a trumpet player and laptopper he has played most recently in Roger Doyle's emsemble 'General Practice' with Keith O' Brien and Trevor Knight. Over the last few years he's been involved with various projects — from dance (with American choreographer Rebecca Walter and catapult Dance Co.) to theatre (doing music and sound design for last years fringe festival sucess 'Pale Angel' directed by Jimmy Fay.) His current projects involve explorations into the hidden capabilities of musical instruments and the ghosts of instrumental sound. Hugh is currently studying composition with Donnacha Dennehy.

PERCY JONES (www.percyjones.net) first appeared in Wales in a remote farmhouse beside a ruined Cistercian monastery. At a certain point he started dabbling with fretless bass, and joined a band that was to become "Brand X". They recorded a series of critically acclaimed jazz fusion records despite Jones' vision of it sounding "like the Beatles but with more chops." He moved to New York in 1978 and formed a trio called "Tunnels", his vision to have a highly amplified electric band playing 12 tone music inspired by Stockhausen. Inexplicably the band ended up sounding curiously like the Beatles. But with more chops. Having recently discovered that "Windex" immobilizes cockroaches just as effectively as the widely used and toxic "Roach Sprays", he has converted his recording studio into a lab and is currently experimenting with formulations of ammonia and detergents. His intense and strangely admirable modesty prevents us from revealing that he has been a highly esteemed collaborator of such luminaries as Brian Eno, Suzanne Vega, Bill Frisell, Roy Harper, Nova, Elliot Sharpe, and Bobby Previte, (just to name a few), and that he has toured extensively in the United States, Europe and Japan...

BRIAN Peter George St. Jean le Baptiste de la Salle ENO (www.enoshop.co.uk) is a British electronic musician, music theorist and record producer. As a solo artist, he is probably best known as the father of ambient music. Eno first came to prominence as the keyboardist and sonic wizard of the 1970s art rock band Roxy Music. After leaving the group, Eno recorded a series of idiosyncratic rock albums, later turning to more abstract soundscapes on groundbreaking albums. Since then, he has produced dozens of albums (many with similarly-minded collaborators such as Harold Budd and Robert Fripp) which have displayed his unique approach to music. He has also occasionally returned to the pop song format. Eno has pursued several artistic ventures parallel to his music career, including visual art installations, a regular column in the newspaper The Observer and, with artist Peter Schmidt, Oblique Strategies, a deck of cards recommending various artistic strategies.

Since returning from his recent fact finding mission to the cod fishing areas of the North Sea, ROGER ENO ( www.starsend.org/rogereno.html) has been busy in his smithy repairing his trawler, "The Trouser". His future plans include learning to drive in Norwegian and teaching himself the throat euphonium.

ANDREW M MCKENZIE has been assisting the birth and schooling of sound whether in the right place at the wrong time or the other way around — or even 'alright' on occasion — for as long as his nose has been in existence. He is normally to be found crouching before the behemoth that is The Hafler Trio, waving at the passing vehicles and not even wondering where they're off to. More about the artefacts he can be held reponsible for can be found at www.brainwashed.com/h3o.

ROBERT FRIPP (www.dgmlive.com) has been a working musician for 46 years, and a professional musician for 37. Taking up the guitar at the age of eleven, and despite being left-handed, tone-deaf and with no sense of rhythm, Fripp nevertheless went on to create a distinctive guitar style and approach that has seen him work with musicians as diverse as Blondie, The Orb, Talking Heads, The Damned, Robert Wyatt, Daryl Hall, The Future Sound of London, The Roches, Andy Summers, David Bowie, Brian Eno, The Stranglers, David Sylvian and, of course, Peter Gabriel. Fripp is probably best known as the co-founder and continuing member of the seminal rock group, King Crimson. Always active, Fripp is the founder of the Guitar Craft seminar programme which continues to hold numerous and ongoing classes around the world. He has also worked extensively as a solo artist, releasing ten solo albums and touring initially with Frippertronics (developed from Brian Eno's tape delay system) during the late 70s and more recently Soundscapes, a process he describes as the best way he knows to make a lot of noise with one guitar.

Having scored a passel of films, e.g. "Fargo", "Being John Malkovich" and most recently "Kinsey", these days CARTER BURWELL (www.carterburwell.com) is trying to create filmic experiences without the distracting visuals in a program called "Theater of the New Ear", featuring text by the Coen Brothers and Charlie Kaufman.

CORA VENUS LUNNY (www.coravenuslunny.com) has been playing the violin since before she could tie her shoelaces. She and her violin have (among other things) played concertos in the Far East with Nigel Kennedy, jazz in Ethiopia and folk music in Iceland; this year, Cora has added the viola to her arsenal and was most recently seen performing Mozart in Moscow. Cora is currently working on various recording projects including her first solo album.

Born in London, LYDIA SASSE was raised mostly in the foothills of the Himalayas by a poet and a concert pianist. Today she lives in Dublin and is part of the Umbrella Foundation, a charitable organisation set up to raise awareness and funds for the children of Nepal. She has sung and performed with many of the musicians in Dublin's thriving alternative music scene, and is currently working on an electronic project with DJ Supercell, and an acoustic album with Ramon Herca.

Galway-based LAURA SHEERAN (www.myspace.com/laurasheeranmusic), recently described by one admirer as "a young Irish Stina" has been working with Clodagh Simonds since she was 15. She has been singing and performing with traditional and not-so-traditional bands in the West of Ireland for the past two years. While still a schoolgirl, she composed the music for 'Rural Electric' by Irish playwright Littlejohn Nee, which was commissioned by the Errigal Arts Festival in Donegal, and subsequently toured Ireland in 2004. She is presently writing and performing music for Nee's latest show "The Mental", and working on three short movie soundtracks, as well as material for her first solo album.

SARAH MCQUAID (www.sarahmcquaid.com) was born in Spain, raised in the USA and has been living in Ireland since 1994. Her solo album ‘When Two Lovers Meet’ drew highly favourable reviews following its 1997 release: “Sarah’s voice is both as warm as a turf fire and as rich as matured cognac.... An astonishing debut by a unique talent,” wrote The Rough Guide To Irish Music. Since then, music has taken second place to raising her two small (and of course angelic) children and working full-time as a magazine editor. For more information, see www.imro.ie

MICHAEL BEGG (www.omnempathy.com) began Human Greed in 1999. When not trying to get to the heart of darkness in wordless narratives he can be found trying to repair his house on Big Hill in East Lothian, Scotland. No. Michael Begg was born in 1966 and got 5 Highers before moving to London, to Lisbon, to Tangier, to New York City, to Paris. No. Michael Begg, after the unmitigated failure of art college, “worked” for 10 years as a poet and playwright before turning from words to avant-garde musical soundscapes. No. Michael Begg is a qualified skipper who swears too much. No. Michael Begg is a simple Scotsman who does what he can in difficult times, wears black, pays his way, drinks red wine, and hunts for what he loves and needs.

GEOFF SAMPLE (www.wildsong.co.uk) was born and bred in Northumberland, and developed a passionate interest in birdsong and natural sound at an early age. Later, he spent many years working in the music business as a guitarist, sound engineer, and producer, but after 15 years, feeling a little jaded, he liberated himself by replacing the contents of his human-oriented studio with equipment geared towards recording wildlife and natural sounds. His work is now widely acclaimed and he is also a published author with Harper Collins on the subject of birdsong and sounds of British wildlife. About birdsong he says "A music evolved over millions of years, that serves as a substitute for conflict: formally simple yet of infinite variation and subject to constant renewal. Individuals perform with an awesome intensity and precision: and in a sense their lives depend on it..."

PETE MEIGHAN is a musician/producer/engineer hailing originally from the village of Adare (Ireland's Disneyland), who has come to find his artistic feet living and working in Dublin. He honed his sonic "abuse" talents while working with Dave Couse, embracing engineering, programming, and guitar duties for the Meteor Award nominated album "The World Should Know". He has been known to sing. Currently he is working as engineer/producer for indie-electro pioneers Hybrasil, and he also represents the XX chromosome pair from behind a guitar and/or laptop for the ever evolving Fovea Hex.

KATE ELLIS is a freelance cellist based in Dublin. Working extensively within all genres of contemporary, classical and improvised music, she is a member of the Crash Ensemble, one of Ireland's most dynamic and innovative performance groups and tours with the Karan Casey Band. She also performs with Improvised Music Company artists Fuzzy Logic Ensemble and the Balkan inspired Yurodni Septet.

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