Limerick indie outfit Anna’s Anchor share their rose-tinted new single ‘Hotel Dom Pancho’ on Wednesday, 17 May, 2023 via Strange Brew. The accompanying music video for ‘Hotel Dom Pancho’ was shot on Super 8 film, capturing the yearning for yesteryear that propels the single forward.
Driven by ambient dreamy synth sounds, ‘Hotel Dom Pancho’ looks back at one of the “last truly carefree” moments in frontman Marty Ryan’s life. After all, as he sings ruefully, “You can't always live in sunshine.”
“Hotel Dom Pancho was a filthy dilapidated hotel off the strip in a typical Iberian package holiday town. My closest friends and I went there after a year of saving up once we had finished school. A week of nonsense and debauchery, but in hindsight, the last truly carefree experience of my life,” Ryan explains.
“For that week, there were no worries, no bigger picture, just a group of friends being 100% in the moment. That was the last time I experienced that and life changed significantly after that. I’ll always remember the week at Hotel Dom Pancho as pure freedom and that’s what I tried to get across in the song.”
This summer will see Anna’s Anchor on tour in Ireland, bringing their raucous full band sound to the Roisín Dubh in Galway on 12th July (just announced), The Workman’s Cellar in Dublin on 13th July, Debarra’s in Clonakilty on 14th July, and Dolan’s Warehouse in their hometown of Limerick on 15th July. Tickets are on sale here.
‘Hotel Dom Pancho’ is the second single off Anna’s Anchor’s fourth album, The Merries, due out on 7 July, 2023 (album vinyl available for pre-order here). The Merries documents some of Ryan’s happiest memories, but his desire to record them came from a fever dream of pain and uncertainty. Ryan suffered a frightening head injury in 2021 shortly after moving to the US to pursue a PhD in music education. While he’s healthy now, memory loss and long term issues were an initial concern. Ryan wrote a list of important memories after the accident happened as a way to ensure he remembered those experiences that were precious to him. Strangely enough, none of these events had ever featured in an Anna’s Anchor song before, despite the band being three albums and a slew of EPs deep.
Since the project’s inception in 2014, Ryan has amassed a loyal audience from playing over 350 shows all around the world in a DIY fashion. 2021’s A Glorious Ruction showed the creative potential of the band with a concept album about the River Shannon that led the group to critical acclaim in Ireland in the U.K. Musically, The Merries is the most expansive offering from Anna’s Anchor to date. Guitars, bass, drums, and brash vocals are there—as expected from the band—but The Merries also includes more stripped back songs, synthesizers, found sound, and spoken word. This album also features more individuals on it than previous releases, with Brian Scally on drums, Clare O’Brien on backing vocals (as well as lead vocals for the album’s closing song), and even a guest appearance from Hermitage Green’s Dermot Sheedy on Bodhrán. In revisiting his past, Ryan discovered a new artistic freedom with Anna’s Anchor, culminating in The Merries.
