The Best of the Month episode is normally Patreon-only. We are making this one fully public. This month's best of the month guest is Nialler9 Podcast regular Louise Bruton. We discuss the album of the month with the most chatter around it - Lily Allen's new direct diaristic divorce album West End Girl, along with records from Irish music scene stalwart Maykay with her long awaited debut solo album, the new sixth album from Florence + The Machine, Katie & Allison Crutchfield's Snocaps record, the supernaturally-inspired Old Earth from Dublin producer Rory Sweeney and friends, the Philadelphia shoegaze band They Are Gutting A Body Of Water and the new PinkPantheress remix album. Along with spotlights for previous guest Ailbhe Reddy and short king hater Alex Cameron. Plus some TV, film and books we've enjoyed.   Listen on Apple | Android | Patreon | Pocketcasts | CastBox | Stitcher | Spotify | RSS Feed | Podlink * Support Nialler9 on Patreon, get event discounts, playlists, ad-free episodes and access our Discord community.

A live recording and chat with Aoife Barry from our recent Listening Party for Jeff Buckley's Grace (1994) at the Big Romance in Dublin. One of the '90s most revered albums, Grace is an astonishing debut LP from the American singer-songwriter Jeff Buckley. Sadly, it was to be his only album as he tragically died three years later but the album is considered a classic for its wide-ranging, reaching vocals (Buckley's voice spanned four octaves), its resonant melding of rock, folk, soul and jazz and songs of intensity, beauty and grandeur including of course, the definitive cover of Leonard Cohen's 'Hallelujah', along with songs like 'Lover, You Should’ve Come Over', 'Mojo Pin', and 'Grace'. Baroque, sweeping, poetic, soul–baring, biblical, elemental and melodramatic Grace is considered one of the best debut albums of all time, and generally just one of the best records of all time. The high drama of his life imbues Buckley’s songs with a level of intensity and singular weight It’s no wonder that it’s an album that teenagers are still discovering today. We discuss the record in front of a live Listen Closely audience.

It's Andrea Cleary's final Nialler9 Podcast as the cohost! Since 2018, and nearly 300 episodes, Andrea has been a big big part of the Nialler9 Podcast and episode 300 is her final episode as she goes off to spend time in academia and finish her PhD. She will be back as a guest in the future but in the meantime: Her final episode is a chance to talk about all the big music things in our world at the moment.. Taylor Swift's 12th album The Life of a Showgirl is a certified stinker according to fans and critics alike. We get Andrea's take on why. Taylor Swift's 12th album The Life of a Showgirl is a certified stinker according to fans and critics alike. We get Andrea's always-insightful take on why. CMAT's Euro-Country - the CMAT stans put on their review stetson and discuss CMAT's third album which Niall thinks is her best. We enthuse about her songwriting once more.  Geese - the explosive rise of the Brooklyn band has people calling them Gen Z's  first great American rock band but they also sound a lot like the indie era Brooklyn-centric bands of the 2000s era - Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, Wolf Parade, TV On The Radio and more. * Support Nialler9 on Patreon, get event discounts, playlists, ad-free episodes and join our Discord community   Listen on Apple | Android  | Patreon | Pocketcasts | CastBox | Stitcher | Spotify | RSS Feed | Pod.Link  

A live recording from our recent Listening Party for Yeah Yeah Yeahs - It's Blitz! (2009) at the Big Romance in Dublin. The third album from the New York band of Karen O, Nick Zinner and Brian Chase marked out the trio from the scrappy garage guitar of their debut (Fever To Tell) and its restrained followup (Show Your Bones) to a glorious reinvention of synthesised art-rock filled with ecstatic and anthemic heights. Featuring two of their biggest hits in Heads Will Roll and Zero, the album brought disco and dance energy to their widescreen rock music, and was full of confidence and bolder sounds with sacrificing the YYYs identity. For Andrea Cleary's last listening party for the foreseeable, she posits the theory that the album marked the end of the  indie era of the 2000s where indie music was practically mainstream and  Beyoncé and Jay-Z were attended Grizzly Bear shows and New York rock bands were known to all. * Support Nialler9 on Patreon, get event discounts, playlists, ad-free episodes and join our Discord community   Listen on Apple | Android  | Patreon | Pocketcasts | CastBox | Stitcher | Spotify | RSS Feed | Pod.Link  

This live episode of the Nialler9 Podcast was recorded in Segotia in Rathmines Dublin on September 27th as part of their one-day festival Me Au Segotia. Segotia is a community space for yoga classes, creative courses, art classes, exhibitions and events in Dublin. Our panel was about how to sustain independent music communities in Dublin. As music grows ever more entangled with unethical platforms and increased corporate interests –  artists, organisers, and fans are rethinking their roles in the ecosystem, and building alternatives. This live episode of the Nialler9 Podcast explores how to build and sustain independent music communities in Dublin and what they look like. We look at how artist, collectives, and grassroots organisers are cultivating alternative networks — through co-operative communities, music collectives, community-run festivals to local independent venue spaces and more. Nialler9 and Andrea Cleary host with guests: Alba Molina Dublin Digital Radio, Synthesize_Her, Dublin Modular, Dublin Alternative Latin Night Inpar and curator/organiser of Alternating Current – Dublin Digital Radio’s annual of the experimental and grassroots currents in contemporary Irish music. Oisín Klinkenberg Oisín is an environmental researcher and project worker who hosts the show ‘amach anseo’ on Dublin Digital Radio. He now sits on the Steering Committee where he has been Project Coordinator. Siún Moriarty Siún Moriarty is the marketing manager in Button Factory, venue manager in the newly launched Curveball and founder of blankbar, an artist development & management agency working with artists Rory Sweeney and Vaticanjail.

A trip into Trance - the dance music genre that launched a thousand cheesy synth lines and Euphoria compilations.

Andrea is taking the summer off the podcast and listening parties, so this month’s special guest is Ailbhe Reddy, the Irish musician, songwriter and soon to be book author.

This live episode was recorded over July in The Big Romance on Parnell Street with a live audience at our latest album listening party Listen Closely. The rapper, DJ and Dublin Don Mango joined us to discuss a rave-to-your-grave 90s UK dance music classic album - The Prodigy – Music For the Jilted Generation. A classic ’90s rebellious rave album and sonic riposte to the crackdown on outdoor rave parites as a result of the 1994’s Criminal Justice Bill in the UK. Music For the Jilted Generation features Prodigy classics ‘Voodoo People’, ‘Poison’, ‘No Good (Start the Dance’, and ‘One Love’ and set the band off on a path of longterm rave and chart crossover that over 30 years later sees them as one of the premiere live dance acts in the world. Listen to our chat about the album's background, the rave era of "toytown techno", the samples or are they samples and all things that lead to Vice call the album “dumb-fuck rock-raving”, and the album certainly opened the pit between rock and rave. Listen on Apple | Android | Patreon | Pocketcasts | CastBox | Stitcher | Spotify | RSS Feed | Podlink * Support Nialler9 on Patreon, get event discounts, playlists, ad-free episodes and join our Discord community

This week’s special guest is  the multifaceted Cóilí Collins aka DJ Shampain. ing in Galway nearly 10 years ago as a duo with Evan Campbell KETTAMA as VSN. The pair went on to form G-Town Records, and brought Galway to the world stages of dance music, with Shampain playing everything from Boiler Room to tours of China. Shampain and Kettama’s Galway influence on the scene culminated in the pair taking over The Big Top marquee outdoors during the Galway Arts Festival in 2023, and putting on an eclectic night with drag artists and drone artists in Salthill. But DJing is not the be all and end all for Cóilí. Shampain is a creative fella who doesn’t rest - that means presenting Éire Eile, a TV show on TG4 about subcultures, jointly running a barber shop called Poblacht in Galway city, doing alternative silent film soundtracks with Slaughterhouse, running a mixed media / magazine and label called Freak and this year, finally releasing his own original music, with more to come. The night after our chat, Shampain plays the Big Top again with Interplanetary Criminal and Tommy Holohan and next week you can catch him at Jameson Connects The Circle Stage at All Together Now closing the stage after David Holmes. The Jameson Connects: The Circle stage at All Together Now features some Nialler9 favourites including Dry Cleaning, David Holmes, Maria Somerville, God Knows, DUG, Sloucho, Curtisy, Róis, Shampain, Adore and more. Listen on Apple | Android | Patreon | Pocketcasts | CastBox | Stitcher | Spotify | RSS Feed | Podlink * Support Nialler9 on Patreon, get event discounts, playlists, ad-free episodes and join our Discord community  

It's always a good time to talk to God Knows, the Irish-Zimbabwean rapper based in Shannon. God Knows is a favourite returning guest, one of the nicest men in Irish music, one of the finest rappers in Ireland, a man who always has time for others, has an open heart, who puts collaboration, creativity and lifting people up to their rightful place. It's a great time to talk to God Knows because on September 26th this year, he will release a long-awaited debut album The Future Of The Past, featuring production by his close collaborator MuRli (we also get to hear where they first met which is a fun bit of trivia) and featuring the singles 'The Observer', 'The Art Of Alienation' and next week's forthcoming single 'Misplaced Empathy'. GK played Cork the night before we chat at a  Jameson Connects The Circle event at Crane Lane, ahead of the rapper's live set at Jameson Connects The Circle stage at All Together Now, this August bank holiday weekend. So we talk about this new music and its deep ancestral familial inspirations which have surprisingly links to an West Cork venue, growing up in a multi-cultural Shannon, DJing and pleasing the crowd (or not), our excitement about the new Clipse album and the weird stuff going on with AI in music at the moment. The Jameson Connects: The Circle stage at All Together Now features some Nialler9 favourites including Dry Cleaning, David Holmes, Maria Somerville, God Knows, DUG, Sloucho, Curtisy, Róis, Shampain, Adore and more. Listen on Apple | Android | Patreon | Pocketcasts | CastBox | Stitcher | Spotify | RSS Feed | Podlink * Support Nialler9 on Patreon, get event discounts, playlists, ad-free episodes and join our Discord community

This live episode was recorded over two nights in June in The Big Romance on Parnell Street in front of an attentive live audience (and some people overheard on the recording from the main bar) I'm sure why it took me 18 editions of the Listen Closely live listening parties for me to think about recording them and putting them out on the Patreon feed but I finally had the idea last month. And sure, when we had two sold out parties of people coming to hear some chat and a full-volume listen in The Big Romance of LCD Soundsystem's second album Sound Of Silver (2007), then it was a great opportunity to stitch together chats I had with two guests DJ Kelly-Anne Byrne and Eoghan O'Sullivan (The Point Of Everything), all about James Murphy, Losing your Edge, loving and hating new York, gout and more The second album from record nerd James Murphy and company, cemented LCD's status as a defining band of an alternative generation, elevating and building on the wry wink-wink-reference debut album with a second record that felt less like Murphy play pretending his heroes but joining them with a record filled with vastly superior alternative dance and rock music that takes its influences and turns them into something greater, and more singularly LCD Soundystem with songs of the age - 'Someone Great', 'Get Innocuous', 'All My Friends', 'Us vs Them' and more. We discuss the record first with Eoghan and then play the record (not broadcast of course) before coming back after with Kelly-Anne Byrne to post-mortem what we've heard. Listen on Apple | Android | Patreon | Pocketcasts | CastBox | Stitcher | Spotify | RSS Feed | Podlink * Support Nialler9 on Patreon, get event discounts, playlists, ad-free episodes and join our Discord community

The Best of the Month episode is now Patreon-only. Public subscribers get the first 25 minutes or so of the episode as a free preview. Members get to hear the whole episode on Patreon as part of a €5 a month subscription so come join us!   Andrea is taking the summer off the podcast and listening parties, so this month's special guest is Eoin Murray, the music writer behind the Irish Substack monthly newsletter Anois Os Ard which digs up Irish music of the underground and experimental variety. Eoin brings a variety of mostly-Irish releases to discuss with music from Throwing Shapes, Amanda Feery, the Efa O'Neill curated Place: Ireland compilation, Days Of Heaven the new album from Belfast band Junk Drawer and the new album from London band Caroline. I pick my favourite albums from the month of June and discuss including Turnstile's Never Enough, Little Simz' Lotus, Loyle Carner's hopefully ! along with underground cloud rap from deathtoricky and the psych-folk style of Poor Creature. We chat about recent gigs attended, Glasto, books we're reading and films and TV shows we are watching. Listen on Apple | Android | Patreon | Pocketcasts | CastBox | Stitcher | Spotify | RSS Feed | Podlink * Support Nialler9 on Patreon, get event discounts, playlists, ad-free episodes and join our Discord community Albums and tracks mentioned Throwing Shapes - Chosen Talk Loyle Carner - hopefully ! (album) - in my mind / about time Junk Drawer - Days Of Heaven (album) - Nids Niteca Little Simz - Lotus (album) - Flood / Enough deathtoricky - motives deathtoricky - praying for u Ó-Pax - Bell Dent Turnstile - NEVER ENOUGH (album) - Never Enough / Sole caroline; Caroline Polachek - Tell me I never knew that Poor Creature - All Smiles Tonight Cocteau Twins - Watchlar

We’re not here for a long time, but we are here for a smooooooooooth time. Grab your linen shirt and deck shoes as we will be taking to the gentle seas for some smooth sailing, daiquiri in hand, and with love on our mind, we are heading to the private island of Yacht Rock. You can be a passenger on this ship. Yacht Rock is the subgenre of music largely made by West Coast American artists The Doobie Brothers, Michael McDonald, Kenny Loggins, Christopher Cross and their ilk with some of the best session players of the mid-70s to early-80s era. Just why did music this smooth and melodic become so dominant? Why did they all love electric pianos so much? Did these progenitors all go sailing as their pastime? Drippy keyboards, bright summery melodies, melancholic lyrics, impassioned sentiment, it’s the concerns of a heartbroken gentleman, it’s time to take a splash in the cool waters of Yacht Rock.

The Best of the Month episode is now Patreon-only. Public subscribers get the first 20 minutes or so of the episode as a free preview. Members get to hear the whole episode on Patreon as part of a €5 a month subscription so come join us! It's the return of our monthly Patreon episode, but this time with a special guest. Andrea is taking the summer off the podcast and listening parties, so I asked Mo Cultivation's Bekah Molony to join me in enthusing about our favourite music of the past month. Bekah joins us to talk about Tyler, The Creator's recent Dublin gig, Forbidden Fruit, Lovely Days at Guinness Storehouse and more. Then we discuss our favourite music from PinkPantheress, Khamari, Baxter Dury, Evan Miles, Mhaol, Billy Woods, Sammy Virji and Skepta, For Those I Love, Katie Phelan, Loyle Carner and Erika De Casier. Plus some song of the summer contenders and chats about Sinners the film and TV shows we're catching. Listen on Apple | Android | Patreon | Pocketcasts | CastBox | Stitcher | Spotify | RSS Feed | Podlink * Support Nialler9 on Patreon, get event discounts, playlists, ad-free episodes and join our Discord community Albums and tracks mentioned For Those I Love - Of The Sorrows Sammy Virji; Skepta - Cops & Robbers billy woods - Golliwog (album) Khamari - Head in a Jar Baxter Dury, JGrrey - Allbarone katie phelan - nothing stays the same Erika de Casier - Lifetime (album) Evan Miles - It's On Me Mhaol - Something Soft (album) PinkPantheress - Stateside PinkPantheress - Illegal Sofia Kourtesis; Daphni - Unidos Selena Gomez; benny blanco - Bluest Flame Loyle Carner - all i need

Today's episode is a discussion with writer and journalist Una Mullally about artist boycotts, solidarity, Palestine, Israel, protest, cancellation, capitalism and the music industry. We talk about how Israel's genocide of the Palestinian people has become a flashpoint of awareness about how modern music festivals work, specifically how private equity which invests in Israel operates in the live music industry. We chat about why Kneecap's recent actions have drawn so much ire and anger in the US and  the UK, leading to the expedited terror charge of Mo Chara on June 18th, and calls (often successful) for cancellation of their shows. Festivals owned by global events company Superstruct who own 80 festivals and brands like Sonar, Sziget, Boiler Room, Oya, Field Day and Mighty Hoopla have had artists cancel in boycott of Superstruct's owner KKR, the second largest private equity firm in the world, who  have documented ties to both weapons manufacturers and Israeli companies developing data centres and advertising real estate on illegally occupied land. It feels like an unprecedented time for the visibility of protest and boycott by artists in recent years. A generational shift is happening -  Artists and DJs are showing moral opposition in this complicity in the face of political inaction. Lines are being drawn.  

K.Dot’s first masterpiece album is a coming-of-age story with Kendrick navigating life in Compton, resisting peer pressure, destructive behaviour and trying to stay righteous in a corrupted world.

The avant-electronic and experimental Irish music festival Open Ear returns to Sherkin Island on the June Bank Holiday weekend. Open Ear is known for its preoccupation with illuminating music operating on the fringes, and the remote island setting of Sherkin Island off the coast of Baltimore in West Cork reflects this outsider ethos. The varied programme is drawn from electronic, techno, experimental folk and trad, jazz EBM, bass music and art rock, and this year features the likes of Irish techno legend Sunil Sharpe, Scottish piper Brìghde Chaimbeul, Cork sean nos rockers I Dreamed I Dream, Belfast Sound Advice record shop owner Marion Hawkes, Limerick rap and production duo Citrus Fresh and 40Hurtz, Catalan/Italian EBM duo Dame Area, Autechre collaborator Rob Hall, and lots more. The programme features one artist at a time across various stages on Sherkin including the infamous Banger Cliff. I spoke to Open Ear head of programming Dion Doherty aka Belacqua about the challenges and uniqueness of putting on an experimentally-minded festival on an island and as it approaches its 10th year, how its planning to grow its European partnerships and unearths Irish music of the underground.   * Support Nialler9 on Patreon, get event discounts, playlists, ad-free episodes and join our Discord community Listen on Apple | Android  | Patreon | Pocketcasts | CastBox | Stitcher | Spotify | RSS Feed | Pod.Link      

Our monthly Patreon episode in which Andrea Cleary and Niall share our favourite music of the past month.   The Best of the Month episode is now Patreon-only. Public subscribers get the first 20 minutes or so of the episode as a free preview. Members get to hear the whole episode on Patreon for a €5 a month so come join us! This month, we are discussing new albums from Torres and Julien Baker, Daughter Of Swords, Bon Iver, Maria Somerville and songs from The Hives, Turnstile, mischa and the bear, Frankie Cosmos, Morgana, Myles Manley and a Crossed Wires NTS show recommendation. Listen on Apple | Android | Patreon | Pocketcasts | CastBox | Stitcher | Spotify | RSS Feed | Podlink * Support Nialler9 on Patreon, get event discounts, playlists, ad-free episodes and join our Discord community Albums and tracks mentioned Marika Hackman; Laura Marling - Skin Daughter of Swords - Alex LP The Hives - Enough Is Enough mischa and the bear - Deny Maria Somerville - Luster LP Turnstile - NEVER ENOUGH Julien Baker; TORRES - Say A Prayer For Me LP Bon Iver - SAble, Fable LP Bon Iver - I'll Be There Morgana - Power Cuts Myles Manley - Indieboys of Dublin Myles Manley - Di Fontaines Frankie Cosmos - Vanity Dame Area - La Danza Del Ferro    

The Irish-Palestinian singer and filmmaker speaks about embracing her Arabic heritage in her music, and the resurgence of interest in keening and Irish folklore.

It’s DILLA TIME This month's special is about Jay Dee aka J Dilla, a Detroit hip-hop producer’s whose work is so prolific and influential his MPC sampler is in the Smithsonian. Dilla worked with hip-hop and R&B greats - Q-Tip, A Tribe Called Quest, Busta Rhymes, The Roots, The Pharcyde, D'Angelo, Common, Madlib and made his own signature rhythm that others copied - he used a sampler like no one had before. Through his unique methods of playing with layered timing, rhythmic expectation, polyrhythm, samples stretching and feel and his ability to bend time-signatures to his will, Dilla changed how music moves, and made Dilla Time (a term coined in the 2022 book of the same name by Dan Charnas). We explore his production work, solo music and the legacy of his final album from 2006, released three days before he died - Donuts - a sample psychedelic beat tape of melancholic beauty and a magic trick of sampling that serves as a towering and influential creative statement. The accompanying Dilla playlist. * Support Nialler9 on Patreon, get event discounts, playlists, ad-free episodes and join our Discord community Listen on Apple | Android  | Patreon | Pocketcasts | CastBox | Stitcher | Spotify | RSS Feed | Pod.Link