Deb started out  with Jazz FM in Dublin before moving to the UK at 19 where now based in Manchester, she has been a regular BBC Radio 6 Music presenter since 2023, currently presenting the New Music Daily Fix show with Nathan Shepherd from Monday to Thursday from 7pm to 9pm.

Deb will be in Ireland over the coming months in her role as ambassador for Heineken Greenlight.

Music discussed and chosen on the episode from Angine De Poitrine, Wax Head, Avalon Emerson, Shortstraw, Baalti and Lapgan, Hannah Peel and Beibei Wang, Isa Gordon, Carol Maia and Jeremy Gustin, The Scratch and Rua Rí.

Plus Deb talks about being a judge on the Choice Music Prize, seeing Madra Salach in a tiny venue, and David Byrne's live Who Is The Sky? tour.

My Best albums of March piece.

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The third album from the British pioneers radically reshaped the band's own bright trip-hop, soul and hip-hop with darker tones of electronic, industrial, and gothic distorted guitars. 

Mezzanine eschews the band's trademark warmth for magnified atmospheres drawing on paranoia, negative space, and whispered vocals to create a mood that mirrored the anxieties of the digital age.

The album caused internal drama. The dark, guitar-heavy vibe of Mezzanine pushed the band into new territory, but it also led to major tension.

We revisit the record and talk about the band's career's highs, lows and live shows in The Big Romance with a live audience.

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Niall is joined by author and writer Dean Van Nguyen discuss the record in front of a live audience at Listen Closely, our series of monthly album listening parties.

Bloc Party’s debut album quickly became a seminal indie record of the 2000s with big frenetic indie zeitgeist hits like ‘Helicopter’, ‘Banquet’, ‘This Modern Love’ and ‘Like Eating Glass’.

Silent Alarm presented a poppy spin on taut post-punk, edgy pop and alternative ballads, with Kele Okereke’s lyrical explorations of matters of the heart, modern anxieties, intimacy and alienation.

Silent Alarm felt like a manifesto. It bridged rock and dance culture before LCD Soundsystem and others made that fusion mainstream. We discuss its beginnings, its impact, what came after for the band and some recommended further listening.

We revisit the record in The Big Romance with a live audience.

Dean's book about Tupac is recommended.

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In the recommendations corner this month are albums from Mitski, Cardinals, Charli XCX, Archive, Jill Scott, Vegas Water Taxi, Puma Blue, Nashpaints and David DeBarra. Plus a song from new Cork band Maicín.

Plus some chat about the phenomenal Industry Season 4 and some other films and TV we've enjoyed this past month.

I wrote about my choices here this week.

Follow Mia on Substack.

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Last Friday, it was reported that newly refurbished Dublin hotel The Hoxton (formerly The Central Hotel) sought an High Court injunction over noise bleed issues against its adjoining late night restaurant and night club space Yamamori Izakaya while it plans to open its own nightclub.

Both parties are in disagreement over what has taken place in attempts at dialogue. In the meantime, a protest took place last night outside the hotel, which showed people's clear frustration with the threats put upon Dublin's cultural and arts spaces.

Dublin folk musician and People Before Profit Dublin Central candidate Eoghan Ó Ceannabháin spoke at the protest last night, and was part of a Stand Up For The Arts public meeting in The Cobblestone afterwards.

Eoghan spoke to me about the broader implications of government policies that prioritise corporate interests over cultural preservation, he emphasises the need for grassroots movements to protect and advocate for the arts.

The chat highlights the importance of community engagement, the untapped potential of publicly funded cultural venues and the recent failure of the government to save The Complex.

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The Best of the Month episode is Patreon-only. This is a  preview on the public feed.

This month's best of the month guest is music writer Vanessa Roulston Mooney.

We pick our favourite music of the first month of the year, from midwest desert post rock of Winged Wheel, new releases from Irish artists Maria Somerville, Madra Salach, Ailbhe Reddy, Ye Vagabonds and Caitlin Orla Eve, the cosmic collab between Julianna Barwick and Mary Lattimore, the Norwegian artist Sassy 009, the "Britainicana" band Westside Cowboy and Chicago experimental trio Bitch Bajas.

We also talk recent gig experiences and the Choice Music Prize Irish album of the year.

Follow Vanessa on Substack.

The These New Puritans interview Vanessa did for us.

A lot has happened in the five and half years (!) since Denise and I sat down with pals to have a chat for the Podcast. This time around, it's just the two of us, with Denise sharing the journey that took her from Ed Sheeran remixes and support slots to an artistic and creative re-evaluation that prompted her to put the breaks on her career as it barrelled ever higher and forward.

In this episode, Denise tells us why she shunned the limelight, and the machinations of the music industry around her, and illuminates on recent times that have taken her to visit the childhood homes of J Dilla (Detroit) and Michael Jackson (Indiana), making a film with Limerick-born LA photographer and director Brian Cross aka B+ about the Supremes performing in Limerick, meeting Erykah Badu and her recent experiences exploring traditional Irish music and sessions.

On Friday, Denise Chaila performs a rare hometown show as part of All We Have Are Days, with the show at billed as an in conversation and performance, which as Denise told me will aim to tear down the barriers of performer and audience.

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Their seminal and definite album Loveless is considered a classic of shoegaze, a totem of the genre. If shoegaze is about building sonic cathedrals, Loveless is the La Sagrada Família of shoegaze.

Nialler and Aoife Barry discuss the album's fraught recording process that involved 19 studios, up to 45 engineers, two and a half years and approximately £250,000 of Creation Records for 48 minutes of music.

But what music! Kevin Shields glide guitar and open tunings added an otherness to the record, as did the mono mix and the Enforced Method Acting of getting Belinda Butcher to sing after immediately waking up. 

Loveless is a nebulous thing - it's more of an ambient wall-of-sound than a guitar rock record at times, that nearly bankrupted the label and turned one label exec's hair white. We discuss it all.

This is an addendum podcast to our original 2022 episode about the album.

Our next listening party event  is Outkast's Stankonia on Wednesday November 26th.

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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.

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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.

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We revisit the classic 1991 record Loveless by the Irish/English shoegaze band My Bloody Valentine, ahead of their upcoming 3Arena show.

On this podcast hour, you'll hear all the album's expensive gestation that took in countless engineers and many studios, the thousand of pounds that Creation Records boss Alan McGee sunk into for the recording without hearing a note, how Kevin Shields' perfectionism lead him to both his Glide Guitar technique and a near mental breakdown, why the album was recorded in mono, why the vocals sound like that, and the reaction to the album at the time. Plus, are MBV really that loud live?

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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.

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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.

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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.

Trance music was primarily formed by producers in Germany, Netherlands and the Benelux countries in the early 90s where producers like German DJ Sven Väth fused techno-style beats with euphoric melodies, inspired by his time in Goa in india and listening to psychedelia. Paul van Dyk, Armin van Buuren, Tiësto and Ferry Corsten are some of the producers who were at the beginning of the genre.

Trance is hypnotic, euphoric, bombastic and bright – making use of repetitive overpoweringly melodic arpeggio synth lines paired with percussive builds, drops and trance gates to induce – the trance state – a musical attempt to replicate the altered euphoric state of mind, and the feeling of being high in the club a aided by ecstasy and mind-altering drugs.

Darude’s ‘Sandstorm’ is trance. Tiesto’s ‘Adagio For Strings’ is trance, Alice Deejay’s ‘Better Off Alone’ is trance. Robert Miles’ ‘Children’ is trance. Gigi D’Agostino’s ‘L’Amour Toujours’ is trance. The Big Brother theme song is trance.

Niamh joins us to enthuse about her favourite trance tunes, and talk to us about the DJs who are dropping trance in their sets these days.

We go on a history of trance music, trance in an Irish context, leading through the ’90’s to the chart poptrance, psytrance and recent music influenced by Trance from FKA Twigs, Burial, Oklou and Danny L Harle.

Are you ready? Let’s open the trance gate!

Niamh O’Connor’s Substack / Instagram

The Trance songs played on this episode.

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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.

Ailbhe has recently started a really good Substack, and is working on novel and has a new album on the way, with new music coming in September.

Myself and Ailbhe discuss CMAT's gargantuan 'Eurocountry', Carving The Stone, the new album from For Those I Love, new tracks from Sprints, Chappell Roan, Laura Groves, Nuovo Testamento and Iona Zajac.

Plus we chat the new Clipse album Let God Sort Em Out, dip into the Irish underground with C2 and Beddyminaj and discuss is there a song of the summer this year? I put forward a contender.

We chat about All Together Now Festival, and some TV and films we have watched.

Ailbhe plays the National Concert Hall in Dublin on September 20th.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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

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.

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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

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.

Ahead of our listening party at the Big Romance, Andrea takes us on the Hero's Journey of Kendrick Lamar's breakthrough 2012 second album good kid, m.A.A.d city.

Subtitled A Short Film, this cinematic rap masterpiece was a huge mainstream success, and crowned Kendrick as the voice of modern hip-hop (Dr. Dre literally appears to do so on the coronation track 'Compton') and it's narrative storytelling tells the story of a 17-year-old Lamar on a quest for a girl before being sidetracked by homie peer pressure and the more dangerous elements of his surrounding landscape.

It features the songs 'Bitch Dont' Kill My Vibe', 'Money Trees', 'Backseat Freestyle', and the accidental frat anthem 'Swimming Pools (Drank)'.

We revisit this modern rap masterpiece, Kendrick's first of many.

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.

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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.

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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 artist Róisín El Cherif has spent 18 months advocating for the people of Palestine, speaking out on the injustice and genocide in Gaza. El Cherif has begun singing in Arabic on stage, noting the connections between Irish and Arabic folk music and culture.

It's best encapsulated in the Róisín El Cherif live show, which debuted at the Fringe Festival and was given a Fringe award for Astounding Performance of Political and Cultural Significance.

The next live show takes place at the Button Factory in Dublin next week, Wednesday April 30th, which will be a blend of live music, poetry and film visuals featuring clips from Arabic films, Palestinian folk music and drawing parallels with Irish mythology and folklore - the cailleach, banshees and keening which is also found in Arabic culture as wailing, and further represents and celebrates the oppressed people of Palestine.

El Cherif recently accepted the Choice Music Prize award on behalf of Fontaines D.C. by reciting part of a poem from Palestinian poet Samih al-Qasim written in 1971 called Enemy of the Sun which speaks of Palestinian resistance against Israel.

We also talk about the reaction to Kneecap's recent Pro-Palestine statements at Coachella.

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.

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The Best of the Month episode is now Patreon-only. Public subscribers get the first 15 minutes or so of the episode as a free preview. Members get to hear the whole episode on their member feeds or on Patreon direct.

Discussing music from Lonnie Holley, Bon Iver, Adebisi Shank, Chappell Roan, Avalon Emerson, Niamh Bury, Brighde Chaimbeul, Selena Gomez & Benny Blanco, Paddy Hanna, MJ Lenderman and an old choice from Cornelius.

We also chat about what we've been watching lately including Adolescence, Severance, Last One Laughing UK (which I erroneously called Laugh Out Loud), 

Moving Still’s music is unique in how it brings together styles of music from the  SWANA region (Southwest Asia and North Africa) with European and American club genres like Italo, electro, acid, breakbeats, house and more.

Jamal's project has been in the ascendancy with releases on Cooking with Palms Trax, Orange Tree Edits, Dar Disku and his latest Close To The Shams EP on the Bordello A Parigi label.

His 2022 Boiler Room set from London is an all-timer for me, and his Ouddy Bangers series has seen him put a club edit spin on pop, disco and dance classics from Lebanon, Egypt, Morocco and Kuwait.

I talk to Jamal about all of it: his big gigs, productions, edits, influences, heritage and how Ireland has been slow to catch up on Moving Still until recently. And he picks a selection of songs that has inspired his music (listed below).

Up next on the DJ front for Moving Still is the latest edition of Klub Sukar at Yamamori Tengu on Saturday April 19th. 

Tracks played:

• Moving Still - Al Disco Haram
• Cheick Madani - Laya Habibi
• Ragheb Alama - El hob al Kabir
• Marvellous Melodicos - sing oh (zagalo mix)
• Moving Still -La Titasil Feeya
• Haruomi Hosono - Laugh Gas
• Omar Souleyman  - Warni Warni
• Moving Still - Bang of Luban
• Ahmed Fakroun - Soleil Soleil
• Ihsan Al Munzer - Jamilah
• Ettab - Ghorba Wa Moghtaribin (Exile and Exiled)
• Chaba Yamina - Sidi Mansour (Moving Still Edit)

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Echoing the early Wild Wild West streaming era that we discussed last week with Liz Pelly that gave rise to Spotify's dominance, our chat this week with Colm Cahalane of Irish music Substack blog Fourth Best / Cork label Hausu finds parallels with what's happening with AI and music right now. AI is breaking new ground, and creating new problems and moral issues in doing so.

Colm recently posted a ruminating article on AI on Fourth Best, which talks to an artist called Kawaii Hoe who inadvertently, and relatively innocently duped me into covering their energetic AI-generated hyperpop music on the site - Like I said it's the Wild Wild West.

We talk about this scary new world of not knowing whether an artist is making music entirely with AI or not, and the implications and creative quandary of generated art.

Because you can now make a full music project with AI, does that mean you should? Are AI musicians just really gifted at prompts? Are the outputs music?

As AI music flooded streaming platforms, social media and we cannot put the genie back in the bottle, what’s next? As Liz Pelly’s book shows, Spotify will do what it can to reduce royalty rates so what’s to stop it from replacing real artist’s music with AI-generated music? Isn’t this already happening whether they allow it or not?

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Liz has been a philosophising on issues brought about by the streaming era's cultural impact for about 10 years now so the book collates a lot of work, thoughts, research and investigative reporting on Spotify and the way it operates.

We talk to Liz about the Swedish streaming giant's outsized influence on the music industry, its gatekeeper effect on trends in music, and how Spotify has emphasised mood and passive listening above discovery and initiative.

We talk about the vast collection of user behaviour on the platform that has lead to artists chasing a more homogenous "streambait pop" sound, how Spotify uses  fake "ghost" artists and their Perfect Fit Content system to reduce royalty rates and squeeze out real artists on the platform's popular algorithmic and editorial playlists.

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The Best of the Month episode is now Patreon-only. Public subscribers get the first 20-25 minutes or so of the episode as a free preview. Members get to hear the whole episode on their member feeds or on Patreon direct.

Discussing new albums from Oklou, Horsegirl, Maria Kelly, Puma Blue and songs from Djo, Car Seat Headrest, Deep Thrills and breaking news - nepobaby Lola Kirke.

We also chat about films we've seen lately including A Complete Unknown, Civil War, Companion and pick an Italo Disco classic that featured in The Brutalist and an even better song from the same act.

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Now six months after Eoin's death,  Arnalds and French's family, friends and collaborators have been celebrating the artist's creativity and legacy with the stunning song they wrote together 'We Didn't Know We Were Ready'. The song was performed on The Tommy Tiernan show on RTÉ in January under Arnalds' Opia community banner with vocals from Niamh Regan, Ye Vagabonds, JFDR, The Staves, Sandrayati Fay, Dermot Kennedy, Laoise Leahy, Memorial, Christof Van Der Ven and most poignantly of all, Eoin’s wife Steph French.

In our chat with Ólafur today, he recounts meeting Eoin, their creative time spent together and the instructions he received from Eoin before he died to finish the record they made together, which will be released later this year.

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• Songs referenced on the Nialler9 Podcast Spotify Playlist

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Episode #276 is a grab bag of topics and events in music so far from Kendrick Lamar's Superbowl Half-Time Show, the Grammys to the music highlights of 50 years of Saturday Night Live.

We talk about Doechii's live performance at the Grammys, Robyn and David Byrne performing together and Lauryn Hill and Wyclef coming back together on stage at Radio City Music Hall to perform some Fugees and Lauryn Hill classics.

Then we delve into the archive of SNL's musical performances, prompted by Questlove and Oz Rodriguez' Ladies & Gentlemen… 50 Years of SNL Music documentary and come up with notorious SNL moments like Ashlee Simpson's lipsync farce, Sinead O'Connor's Pope-ripping a capella, Rage Against The Machine getting kicked out of the show for upsetting the advertisers and Republicans, Elvis Costello switching it up live without telling the producers.

Then we highlight some of our favourite performances on the show from The White Stripes / Jack White, Chance The Rapper on Kanye's 'Ultralight Beam', Janis Ian and Billy Preston on the 1975 debut of the show and more.

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Episode 275 is an interview with Kittser about his electronic project New Jackson. It may have felt like a side project when it debuted with The Night Mail EP in 2011, but over the last 14 years, the New Jackson releases have been so consistent across a multitude of EPs on Permanent Vacation, Hivern, All City, Maeve and more, with last year's second album Oops!... Pop softened the lines into a more techno pop songwriting style.

Ahead of the New Jackson live show in Dublin on Saturday March 28th with support from Rory Sweeney and The Outside, his forthcoming album project with Efa O'Neill, we talk that collaboration, his new release as MMOTTORR with TR One , what he's learned from 30 years of DJing, living in Kerry, Spotify and Bandcamp discourse, and bucking the zeitgeist trends in dance music in 2025.

David also picks some key influential New Jackson tracks from Joy Orbison, Wham!, Pépé Bradock, Carl Craig and The Egyptian Lover.

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Welcome back.

Kicking off season 5 of the Nialler9 Podcast with the return of our regular series in which Nialler and Andrea Cleary share their favourite music of the month.

Discussing new albums from The Weather Station, MIKE, Pink Siifu, FKA Twigs among others; and songs from Lucy Dacus, Doechii, Niamh Regan, Japanese Breakfast, Olafur Arnalds, Talos and friends.

We also chat the Choice Music Prize album nominations, Bluesky, The Traitors and films we've seen lately including Nosferatu, Blue Velvet/Lost Highway (RIP David Lynch) and The Substance [Nialler's Letterboxd].

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Niall and Andrea hand out gongs in categories:

Best live TV and web video performances, sax solo of the year, the Andre 3000 award for best guest verse, best film soundtrack, song featured in a TV show, duds of the year, the heroes and villains of 2024 (Irish artists at SXSW, Drake, Spotify and more), best rap beat, trend of the year, the award for best music with annoying vocalist (hi Geordie Greep), sample, disappointments, pop artist, single released after critically-acclaimed album that was better than the album (hi Mk.Gee), quote of the year, funniest moment of the year (hi Grimes at Coachelly), club track of the year, best song about Palestine, favourite song that sounds like Bernard Herrman’s Psycho score and best cover song of 2024.

Dig in, and talk to you next year.

Niall and Andrea x

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Featuring discussion and reasons for best albums from Charli XCX, Jessica Pratt, Mabe Fratti, MJ Lenderman, Adrienne Lenker, Cindy Lee, Bricknasty, Father John Misty and Curtisy.

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Andrea and Niall pick a selection box of their songs of the year and talk about them.

Featuring songs from Charli XCX, MJ Lenderman, Waxahatchee, Burial, Baby Rose, Laura Marling, Beyoncé, Kendrick Lamar, Fontaines D.C., Róis and more.

Show notes:

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Episode 270 is partly a review of our favourite music of the month, and partly a chat about what's happening with Kendrick (new album) and Drake (lawsuits lol) in November.

Andrea tells us why Drake is suing UMG, the label both him and Kendrick are on, and why he is also suing the label for defamation for things said in a rap beef with Lamar (you couldn't make it up) .

Then we review Kendrick's new surprise album GNX, with its West Coast focus and hyphy vibe adding up to a victory lap for the rapper.

After our recent deep dive into his seminal album, it's the return of Andrea’s Cool Big Guy Father John Misty and his new album Mahashmashana who as we found out is on the same release schedule as K.Dot. Andrea reviews the album and we talk an endorsement from Cher?

Then it's recommendation corner with music from Bolis Pupul, Ahmed, With Love., Oisin Leech, single men in their twenties and the Doechii & Tyler, The Creator performance at Camp Flog Gnaw.

Show notes:

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The Jameson Music Trail will present 100 live sets from dozens of Irish artists we love, with many acts playing twice in the town’s 16 venues, including a Jameson Connects stage at The Dingle Bridge House for the first time.

For this episode, I spoke to Kerry musician and OV regular Junior Brother about playing in Dingle, recording his soon-to-be-released third album with John "Spud" Murphy, and playing with The Pogues.

Then we chat to Juno King, events producer with the OV family, literally in that her dad Philip started the show 23 years go and Juno along with triplet sisters Molly and Ellen grew up in and around the show. Juno talks to us about the limitations and magic of putting on the festival every year and what's exciting her this year on the lineup.

Then, we beam in Dan and Paul from Silverbacks, the indie-rock band who have just released their third album Easy Being A Winner, and we discuss making the album with GIlla Band's Dan Fox, what success looks like for the band and what they're looking forward at Other Voices this year.

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• Other Voices
• Jameson Music Trail

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With a Deluxe version of the album out now, I spoke to Gavin Curtis aka Curtisy about starting out rapping in 2021 and meeting Ahmed, With Love and making their first song 'Men On A Mission' in 2022 with Rory Sweeney. Curtisy has a prolific output, and we discuss his many collaborators (Ahmed, With Love makes a brief appearance too), valuing vulnerability and authenticity in your music and discuss the Irish music he loves including music from Sloucho, Lil Skag, EFÉ, Bricknasty, Rory Sweeney / Carlos Danger and of course, Ahmed, With Love; plus what comes next in 2025.

Curtisy Tour dates:

Saturday 16th November – The Black Box, Belfast

Wednesday 20th November – The Workman’s Club, Dublin

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Show notes:

• Curtisy on the Jobstown spots that influenced his new album What Was The Question
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In this episode, Nialler and Andrea kick off the chat with Halloween experiences, Andrea stays up for the Trump show, and advocates for leaving Twitter you guys.

Then we highlight our favourite tracks and albums from October, including new albums from Irish artists like Fionn Regan (O Avalanche), Silverbacks (Easy Being A Winner), Deathbed Convert (Inverse Field Vol. 1) and Olive Hatake (Boys Need Love) along with international choices from Laura Marling (Patterns In Repeat) and Mount Eerie (Night Palace).

There are song picks from Father John Misty, Morgana, Waxahatchee and MK.gee too.

Plus, TV and films we're enjoying in the What's Consuming You? corner.

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As one of the most compelling album artists in rap, and an artist who is on a great run of records including Flower Boy (2017), Igor (2019), Call Me If You Get Lost (2021), how does Chromakopia stack up?

With Tyler bigger than ever and selling out two 3Arena Dublin shows this week, I take a deep dive into the record with self-confessed Tyler Stan Max Zanga aka Filmore!.

While it may look like a conceptual character record on paper, we discuss Tyler's clear vulnerabilities about his place in the world as a successful 30-something materially-rich rapper (“Biggest in the city after Kenny [Kendrick Lamar], that’s a fact now”) while Tyler grapples with whether or not he's ready to become a father (2024 is truly the year pop stars started writing about whether they should have children), whether he wants or needs a long-term relationship, and there's a re-examination of Tyler's own established narrative with his own estranged father.

Filmore!'s latest EP Idle Death Gamble is out now, as is Chromakopia.

*Finally - apologies about the audio quality this week, as host, producer and editor I messed up my audio source this week meaning we are hearing the webcam audio :(

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What is a night mayor? A night czar? A night-time economy advisor?

Well, my perception of what it entails is someone who advocates and advises local city council policy and decision-making on what is required in order to make the city more liveable at night, more culturally rich, safer, and to be the glue between various communities like venue owners, promoters, night time economy workers and those who make decisions around how the city operates at night time.

But we’re not going to take my word for it, we’re going to talk to Dublin's first night-time economy advisor Ray O'Donohue.

O’Donoghue is known for his work in events and the Sea Sessions festival, before his appointment in April. Last week, Dublin City Council shared its Night-Time Economy Strategy – “a comprehensive plan designed to cultivate a thriving night-time culture in our city”, spearheaded by Ray O’Donoghue and supported by the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport, and Media.

So, I talked to Ray about his plans to help Dublin night-life, and what we can expect from the role for Dublin city...

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Boards Of Canada's debut album Music Has The Right To Children on Warp Records/SKAM is a modern classic, a highly evocative collection of music, operating like a fading childhood memory, a creeping nostalgic collage of analogue electronic music, samples from public service broadcasting programming, with inspirations from to hip-hop beats, ambient techno and psychedelia.

Join Niall and Andrea to discuss the liminal legacy of Music Has The Right To Children, and discover how library music, Sesame Street and nature documentaries all inform the album, and we chat about the album’s childhood nostalgia, and its preoccupation with a retrofuturistic nostalgia and memory.

Join us at the Big Romance on Wednesday October 30th for our Listening Party for the album. You won't want to miss the chance to hear this on vinyl as loud as possible!

The Listen Closely series of listening party nights in The Big Romance, featuring a focus album from an artist we love on the last Wednesday of every month. It's a chance to appreciate a modern classic album played loud on vinyl through the bar's beautiful Toby Hatchett soundsystem with a chat about the record before and after, whether you know it and love it, or if it's brand new to you.

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Episode 263 comes at us fast with Niall Byrne and Andrea Cleary's monthly music recommendations.

Chatting Indie Sleaze, a reason to be cheerful with the return of Adebisi Shank and a chat about club culture post-pandemic.

Then we highlight new albums from Floating Points (this is the Jamie xx Substack post that annoyed Niall), and Henry Earnest along with songs from Bon Iver, Ahmed With Love, Maria Somerville, Freak Slug, FKA Twigs, Fionn Regan, Nilufer Yanya and a Teac Damsa Nobodaddy-inspired closing pick.

Plus, TV, film and books we're enjoying in the What's Consuming You? corner.

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The Gardaí's statement about the matter cited "public safety concerns" but that doesn't explain how an innocuous gathering of people inside and outside a vintage shop escalated into baton-charging, threats of pepper-spray and a disproportionate number of guards clearing the busy Temple Bar area with an unwarranted heavy-handiness.

The incident happened, in an increasingly hostile environment for minority communities in Ireland. Why was a block party in Temple Bar, that was giving no immediate pressing trouble, met with violence, while violence at far right protests and the burning of buildings earmarked for asylum seekers goes unpunished?

Ireland is seeing an increasing number of anti-immigrant accounts online, and the verbal abuse of people of colour has increased, while just this week, the government’s Justice Minister Helen McEntee has dropped the incitement or hate speech sections of the Criminal Justice Bill.

On this week's podcast, we talk to Silent Jee, a DJ on the night about what went down from his perspective, and how the guards showing up at the block party is nothing new. We explore how these kinds of actions are familiar to black and POC in Ireland's creative community. We talk to Mo Cultivation's Bekah Molony about what allies and peers can do and how nothing has changed since the Black Lives Matter movement in 2020. Things have arguably gone the other way.

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It’s the Nialler9 Podcast’s monthly episode where Niall and Andrea recommend albums and songs of recent weeks.

Episode 261 of the Nialler9 Podcast features albums from MJ Lenderman and Sabrina Carpenter, along with songs from Moin, Adore, RÓIS, and a song discovery from Another Love Story festival.

We also pay tribute to Eoin French, of the Cork project Talos who sadly passed away last month.

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Over nearly TWO HOURS, Andrea takes us through the highlights of his albums: Fear Fun, I Love You, Honeybear; Pure Comedy, God's Favourite Customer and Chloë and the Next 20th Century, his run of albums from 2012 to 2022.

Our chat takes in topics of masculinity, lyrical explorations, cynicism, playing with character and performer roles, entertainment, ecology, doom-laden rants, societal schisms, online living, political nightmares and psychedelic experiences. You know... the small stuff.

The Nialler9 Podcast presents a Listening Party for Father John Misty - I Love You, Honeybear (2015) at The Big Romance in Dublin on Wednesday September 25th at 7pm.

Join Niall and Andrea for a playback of a compelling grandstanding album all about love, romance tempered by the cyncism and internal struggle of a man and songwriter who can't quite put faith in the idea that love might be the answer. Buy tickets here.

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Romance signifies some change from the Fontaines, their first on new label XL Recordings, they have graduated from the indie producer du jour Dan Carey with James Ford (Arctic Monkeys, Blur, Depeche Mode, Florence and the Machine, Gorillaz ) at the controls, a producer used to big music stage sounds.

Romance brings a mix of guitar rock genres - shoegaze, 80s Irish and UK indie, ‘90s alt-rock, grunge, into their fold, while retaining their core Fontaines sound. Yet, the songs are among the brightest they've done.

Grian Chatten's lyrics have transcended their Dublin roots and embraced a universality. The preoccupation with a city of origin is replaced by Romance as a concept.

His vocals have grown on this record, more soaring, more melodic, brighter, less gutteral, more commanding and varied.

But is it any good? Dive into Romance with us.

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It’s the Nialler9 Podcast’s monthly episode where Niall and Andrea recommend albums and songs of recent weeks.

Episode 258 of the Nialler9 Podcast features Niall and Andrea discussing the Olympics, a brief review of All Together Now, Optimo at Hang Dai and more.

Up for discussion on the music tips are: albums from Clairo, Remi Wolf, Clara La San; tunes from A Lazarus Soul, Charli XCX, Kynsy, Merce Lemon, Devon Again, Chanel Beads, Fcukers and Father John Misty. Plus an unreleased gem from Phil Lynott?

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I spoke to Shiv about the nature of collaborating and connecting with different artists and producers for this episode of the Nialler9 podcast, ahead of Shiv’s set at All Together Now Festival this August Bank Holiday weekend, where Shiv plays on the Jameson Connects The Circle Stage at 7pm on the Friday night. Shiv will be debuting a special song and joined by her collaborator on the song James Vincent McMorrow.

The forthcoming album is a reflection of the personal upheaval she experienced, including a breakup, leaving a major label, parting ways with her manager, and moving countries. Shiv talks about how studying psychology has influenced her songwriting.

Shiv also talks about her influences and we focus on songs from Kanye, James Vincent McMorrow, Dijon, Ari Lennox, and Negro Impacto (see below).

The Jameson Connects: The Circle stage at All Together Now features some Nialler9 favourites including Optimo, Just Mustard, The Murder Capital, qbanaa, Aby Coulibaly, Morgano, Sloucho, Rachael Lavelle and more.

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It's the latest episode in the Niall explains a dance music genre to Andrea series.

What is French Touch? For some it means house music of French origin of the '90s and 2000s. For me, it's more defined.

French Touch is more of a subgenre almost exclusively made by French producers - French dance music rooted in samples of old disco records where strings, bass and vocals were rerouted through a Chicago house music 4/4 beat and given a retro futuristic sheen with shiny synthesisers and a compressed cosmic atmosphere. A sense of majique can we say?

It was part of a near 10 year period from the mid 90s to the early-2000s in which French dance music dominated, a time in which Parisian cool, French fashion and influence dripped out of the country’s culture, whether it was Daft Punk’s world domination, Ed Banger Records’ electro cachet on dancefloors worldwide, fashion and record label Kitsune’s coveted Maison compilations or Phillipe Zdar’s influence on music production.

For our short history of French Touch, we will feature music from Alan Braxe, DJ Falcon, Thomas Bangalter, Stardust, Cassius, Together, The Paradise Étienne De Crecy and the omnipresent Daft Punk.

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• Songs played on the Nialler9 Podcast Spotify Playlist
• French Touch companion playlist

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It’s the Nialler9 Podcast’s monthly episode where Niall and Andrea recommend albums and songs of recent weeks.

Episode 255 of the Nialler9 Podcast features Niall and Andrea discussing the latter's trip to see

Taylor Swift in Dublin (Andrea's review is here), and Niall went to LCD Soundsystem, and, got happily divorced this month. REAL LIFE STUFF.

Musically we are talking albums from Mabe Fratti and Kneecap, and songs from MJ Lenderman, Skinner, Charli XCX and Lorde, Sabrina Carpenter, Soccer Mommy, the batshit clubccordion polkapop song from Kesha and literally, music for tomato plants.

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There's no formula for writing a song of the summer, the same way that you can't guarantee a Christmas classic, but there are some ground rules that seem to apply for most of the songs in contention every year.

As noted by Mark Savage's The secrets of a hit summer song piece, some key things a song has to be simple (like Whigfield's 'Saturday Night'), It should make you feel like you're on holiday ('Pon De Replay' / 'Club Tropicana'), novelty is good, whether that means meme-friendly, silly ('Macarena') or a novel mix of styles (like Old Town Road's mix of country and rap) but most importantly it should be released before the summer, ideally mid April - early May latest.

We added a few more rules of our own - including mentions of food and drink are good, controversy can be helpful, titillation can work, melancholy, anticipation and the song's unquantifiable repeatable vibe that doesn't grate over months of listening via rooftops, out of cars, festivals, clubs and pubs. A catchy lyric is essential - are you ready to match our freak?

But really the song of the summer is a nebulous accolade, and ultimately decided by too many factors to identity.

This year's main contenders include Kabin Crew's 'The Spark', Sabrina Carpenter's 'Espresso', Tommy Richman's 'Million Dollar Baby', Chappell Roan's 'Good Luck Babe', Charli XCX's '360', Kendrick's 'Not Like Us' and songs from Tik-Tok memes, Billie Eilish, Jamie xx, Tinashe, Hozier, Shaboozey and more.

We take them at their word and consider each for the ultimate summer medal - the song of the summer 2024.

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On Episode 253 we are joined by Kelly Doherty (of The Vinyl Factory, Satellite Towns and formerly Nialler9) to discuss all things brat from the clubby rollout to the surprising vulnerability and insecurities on Charli’s latest record.

We put in context of her career, it girls, relationships, motherhood and how big of an artist Charli XCX really is now.

Plus, Kelly shares her favourite Charli songs including three under-rated favs.

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Episode 252 of the Nialler9 Podcast and we are excited and enthusing about music of May. There are songs from Kynsy, His Father's Voice, PinkPantheress, Clairo, Kawaii Hoe and Charli XCX.

And albums this month from Papa Romeo, Billie Eilish, Carlos Danger, Niamh Regan and yes, the Challengers score from Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross.

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"Don’t try this at home on your dad’s stereo — only under strict hip-hop supervision.."]

Join Niall and Andrea to hear why Beastie Boys' fourth album from 1994 Ill Communication is one of the best around - with chat about how the band recorded and made it, where the put the Beasties in the context of their discography and their career, the artwork, B-sides, Adam Yauch's spiritual enlightenment, political activism through the Milarepa Fund and Tibetan Freedom Concert and how the band addressed their previous Licensed To Ill misogyny.

Ill Communication is defined by a melting pot of hip-hop, punk, jazz-fusion, flute samples, funk, rare groove records and Tibetan monk chanting.

Plus, the brilliance of 'Sabotage', the Letterman performance and the best music video of all-time?

And Niall reveals that his first ever website was a Beastie Boys one in 1999 that he made with his friend Ciaran.

This week's episode is a companion podcast to our Listening Party of the album in the Big Romance on Wednesday May 29th. Buy a ticket here to join us.

• Spotify Playlist - Songs played on the Podcast
• Sabotage on Letterman
• Nialler's first website - A Beastie Boys site - Alright Hear This on the Way Back Machine.

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It's episode 250 (!) of the Nialler9 Podcast and we are sharing our enthusiasm for albums from Curtisy, Rachel Chinouriri, Jessica Pratt, Bálordabreen and tracks from Chappell Roan, Jamie xx, Baby Rose / BadBadNotGood, Sloucho, Taylor, CMAT , Charli XCX and a tribute to Steve Albini.

Along with the What’s Consuming You corner with chat about Ripley and Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell and more.

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• Hozier is the first Irish artist in 34 years to get a US #1
• The Kendrick, Drake, J. Cole rap beef
• The reaction to Taylor Swift's Tortured Poets Department
• The Electric Picnic lineup
• Lankum, CMAT and Jazzy nominated for Ivor Novello Awards
• Early club nights are a thing
• Song of the summer contender: Espresso
• Cindy Lee - Diamond Jubilee - the power of one review and relative release obscurity

Show notes

• Spotify Playlist - Songs played on the Podcast
• Coachella Isn’t Dead—but It May Be Haunted

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Cian joins us to pick 6 tracks to represent his radio show over the years, and to discuss his process, DJing and how he has managed to present a world-renowned radio show for so long in a fickle media industry.

Tracks selected come from To Rococo Rot, St. Germain, Dead Can Dance, Fairmont, Loner Deluxe and Mike Smalle.

Cian is marking 25 years of ATT on his show from Monday 29th April to Friday 3rd May, wheree he feature all exclusive new music, previously unreleased and unheard outside of the musicians’ studios, from artists he admire from home and abroad, including Peter Gordon, Works Of Intent, Dian Cécht, Blamhaus, Elliot Adamson, The Shen, Meljoann, Man Power, Junk Drawer and Ambient Babestation Meltdown and Borai.

Two Disco Dána parties in Galway (Cuba venue on Saturday 4th May) and Dublin (at Hen's Teeth - Friday 31st May.) are also lined up.

----

ATT airs every Monday from 11pm to 1am and from Tuesday to Friday from 10pm to midnight.

—

• Spotify Playlist - Songs played on the Podcast
• Radio show Archive - ATT

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The debut album from the then 18 year-old American singer-songwriter established the artist’s unique raw songcraft that blends pop, rock, and jazz. Featuring the songs ‘Criminal’, ‘Shadowboxer’, ‘Sleep to Dream’, and ‘The First Taste’, Tidal is a fully-formed classic of the mid-90s written from the hardened perspective of a young woman surviving the world.

We discuss the album, how Fiona Apple got her record deal, how the media at the time largely focused on Apple's looks in the context of album reviews , how this "sullen girl" / strong-willed opinionated young woman was treated by the music industry, and how the album stacks up nearly 30 years later.

This week's episode is a companion podcast to our Listening Party of the album in the Big Romance on Wednesday April 24th. Buy a ticket here to join us.

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• Spotify Playlist - Songs played on the Podcast
• Fiona Apple & the Sexist Critics in the 90s
• Idiotalk Podcast

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A for America

B For Beyonce

C for Country

(and D for Discourse)

This 80 minutes and 27 track album, serving as Act 2 in the Renaissance trilogy, was purported to be Beyoncé's country album. That's not what has bolted from the stables. Cowboy Carter is not a country album, but it does feature a lot of country music sounds, references and personnel. it’s Beyonce kicking through the saloon doors of country and inviting whoever or whatever sound she wants alongside her. It’s more of a cultural reclamation of black AMERICAN music, with the origin story being that night in 2016 when Beyoncé performed Daddy Issues at the Country Music Awards in 2016, and made the traditionalists mad.

Cowboy Carter is an odyssey through American music of black origin, black country heritage, with Dolly Parton, Willie Nelson, opera, bluegrass, Beach Boys, Nancy Sinatra, Westerns, "real instruments", Rodeo, Chuck Berry, Miley Cyrus, Post Malone, Jon Batiste, Rhiannon Giddens outlaws, shotguns and giddy ups and shotgun riders.

Join us for an very interesting chat about it.

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Episode 245 is a ping-pong new disco recommends, with music discussed from Waxahatchee, Adrianne Lenker, New Jackson, Tatyana, Travis & Elzzz, Glass Beams, Charli XCX, Havvk, Group Listening, Two Shell / FKA Twigs and Mildlife (I guess)...

Along with the What’s Consuming You corner with a sci-fi TV show we both loved this month.

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The debut album from the Bristol trio of Geoff Barrow, Beth Gibbons, and Adrian Utley was released during the summer of Blur’s Parklife and Oasis’s Definitely Maybe. Dummy was a darker, stranger record that would become a trip-hop classic that paired hip-hop, jazz, and electronic textures with Beth Gibbons spine-tingling voice and twangy tremolo guitars that belong in spy movies.

The winner of the 1995 Mercury Music Prize, Dummy features the singles ‘Sour Times’, ‘Glory Box’, and ‘Numb’, and is notable for it soulful turntable-sampling, melancholic film noir atmosphere. A modern classic indeed. We delve deep into how the band met, what trip-hop and the Bristol sound was, how the band got their name, how Dummy became hugely popular and a bit of a dinner-party LP ripe for background music in film and more.

The hosts of the Nialler9 Podcast (Niall Byrne and Andrea Cleary) present the Listen Closely series of listening parties on the Big Romance’s warm Toby Hatchett soundsystem, featuring a focus modern classic album and a chat around it on the last Wednesday of the month.

The Portishead - Dummy Listening Party happens Wednesday March 27th at The Big Romance.

Thanks to Georgia Hallion for editing the podcast.

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• KEXP 25 year anniversary interview in 2019
• Dummy Samples
• Pitchfork’s review by By Philip Sherburne

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Today's episode is a bit of a grab bag of news items, but musicians speaking truth to power is a common theme.

Niall and Andrea discuss:

• Lankum winning the Choice Music Prize and their speech that encouraged the boycott of Israel
• Kneecap's show of Solidarity with Palestine on the Late Late Show & their US TV debut
• All the Irish bands including Kneecap who then cancelled their SXSW Festival shows this week in protest at US Military involvement
• Leo Varadkar wants nothing to do with bringing in the long-proposed Irish nightlife laws any time soon
• James Blake weighs in on streaming being broken, in a time which increasingly feels like it’s going towards a tipping point
• The growing crisis in music - How the rising cost of living is affecting bands' ability to create art and make money to live.
• “You can get a Grammy nomination and you still can't afford to rent a one-bedroom flat in London,” says Grian Chatten of Dublin's Fontaines DC,
• And the minor furore over an out-of-context use of quote from The Last Dinner Party - "People don’t want to listen to post-punk and hear about the cost of living crisis any more.”

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Episode 242 is a return to the music recommends corner, featuring new album picks from Fynch, Thee U.F.O, Declan McKenna, Mohammad Syfkhan and new songs from Adrianne Lenker, Brittany Howard, Niamh Regan, Jessica Pratt, The Decemberists and Beck.

Along with the What’s Consuming You corner with TV, books and films we are vibing with lately.

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The albums are:

Grian Chatten – Chaos For The Fly (Partisan Records)

The debut album from the Fontaines DC frontman.

CMAT – Crazymad, For Me (CMATBABY/AWAL)

The second album from Ireland’s global country pop superstar.

John Francis Flynn – Look Over The Wall, See The Sky (River Lea Recordings)

The second album from the Dublin folkie turns with a contemporary twist.

Kojaque – Phantom Of The Afters (Soft Boy Records)

he second full-length album (not counting previously nominated mixtape Deli Daydreams) from the London-based Dublin rapper.

Lankum – False Lankum (Rough Trade Records)

The fourth album from Ireland’s leading doom folk trad band.

Rachael Lavelle – Big Dreams (Rest Energy)

The Irish songwriter and avant-pop practitioner’s debut album.

Soda Blonde – Dream Big (Overbite Records)

The second album from Dublin alt-pop band.

The Murder Capital – Gigi’s Recovery (Human Season Records)

The second album from the Dublin rock band who have softened somewhat for album two.

The Scratch – Mind Yourself (Perrystown Music Limited)

The second album from the Dublin trad-folk-metal band.

Ezra Williams – Supernumeraries (Ezra Williams / AWAL)

The debut album from the Cork singer-songwriter.

–

Niall, Andrea and guest Sophia discuss the albums in detail and decide which of the ten they individually think a) would like to win and b) will win the award.

The actual winner of the Prize announced at the live event in Vicar Street on March 7th, and is broadcast live on RTÉ 2FM in a special four-hour extended show with Beta Da Silva from 7-11pm. A special TV show will be broadcast on Thursday 14th March at 22.30 on RTÉ2.

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To accompany the monthly listening party on Wednesday February 28th – 7.30pm @ The Big Romance, we present a Nialler9 Podcast episode all about this month's chosen album....

This month:

“This is the time/and this is the record of the time.”

An album that was ahead of its time upon release, Big Science draws from Anderson’s multi-media performance art piece United States I-IV, and presents an experimental avant-garde electronics , art-rock and spoken word prophetic dissection of 80s America that spawned a surprising pop hit with the towering O Superman.

Andrea takes the lead on why this album is noteworthy and important.

Listen Closely is a chance for the music heads, to appreciate a modern classic album on the Big Romance’s warm Toby Hatchett soundsystem with a chat about the record on the night. More info.

Big special extra thanks to Georgia Hallion for editing the podcast.

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• Laurie Anderson plays music for dogs
• Marcello Giordani - O Superman (Disco Spacer Mix)

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It's the turn of the MF DOOM and Madlib's classic 2004 album Madvillainy by Madvillain, a dense, psychedelic, colourful rap album that quickly cemented itself as one of the best rap albums of all time when it came out on Stones Throw that year.

Why is Madvillain so important?

It's the sound of two masters of their craft - Madlib deep crate-digging wizz of flipped samples which avoided the musical grid and DOOM’s "tripping off the beat kinda" rhymes which defied expectation and form, and became endlessly quotable while retaining complex and comedic intent. Madvillainy is the sound of two elusive creatives ricocheting off each other’s oddball styles with disorienting brilliance.

Niall and Andrea discuss the album's gestation, recording, leak, samples, lyrics and mythology.

In January, we hosted a Listen Closely listening party in the Big Romance in Dublin with this album. Our next one will be Wednesday February 28th with Laurie Anderson's Big Science. Tickets on sale next week.

Big special extra thanks to Georgia Hallion for editing the podcast.

Patreon supporters get the episode ad-free on Patreon

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After taking January off, Niall and Andrea are back discussing what has been happening in music since we closed off the year with the Best of 2023 episodes including

• Pitchfork's downsizing, the state of music journalism and the Enshittification of online music discovery and discourse, and online life in general?
• The Choice Music Prize Irish albums of the year nominees
• The Eurovision Song Contest and the growing call for the Boycott of Israel. Will Ireland make a stand alongside Sweden, Finland, Iceland and more?
• What we've been consuming - music, TV, film since our break.
• 
  

Big special extra thanks to Georgia Hallion for editing the podcast.

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In a year where AI, touring became more difficult for musicians, and Spotify squeezed the emerging artists, We give out awards for things like:

• Best live gig
• Best live performance
• Villain of the year
• Thing we'd like to go away
• Best opening song lyric
• Best bagpipes solo
• The Alan Maguire Award horny for photoshoots award
• Best rap guest verse(s) aka The Andre 3000 award
• Rap beat of the year
• Best new bands
• Surprising sample of the year
• best pop song
• worst song of the year
• worst guest verse of the year
• biggest letdown of the year
• Comeback of the year
• Most pointless release of the year
• Wonky beat of the year
• Best discovery from end of year lists
• Best Italo song of the year
• Favourite song to DJ this year
• Best ambient / chilled release of the year
• Best album about a bus Route in Galway
• Thing nobody wanted, aka the Harry Award
• Music documentary

Plus, our favourite TV shows, podcasts, film, needledrops and books.

Special thanks to Georgia Hallion for editing this podcast episode.

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Featuring albums from Lankum, Boygenius, Noname, Andre 3000, Olivia Rodrigo, Rachael Lavelle, Lana, Kara Jackson, Mitski and more.

Next episode: The Nialler9 Podcast Awards 2023.

Special thanks to Georgia Hallion for editing this podcast episode.

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We are talking tracks we loved from Lankum, Lana, Big Thief, Troye Sivan, CMAT, The Hives, Sofia Kourtesis, Mustafa, Olivia Rodrigo, Rachel Lavelle, Overmono, boygenius and more. All killer no filler.

Next episode: Albums of 2023.

Special thanks to Georgia Hallion for editing this podcast episode.

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Nialler and Andrea Cleary take a big overview of the main discography of one of our favourite songwriters.

Sufjan Stevens is a Detroit Michigan artist, songwriter, composer and multi-instrumentalist who has a deep catalogue of studio albums drawing on orchestral conceptual releases about US States, electronic hymnals, secular-friendly Christian music, Christmas albums, ambitious cosmic electronic long players and devastating folk and singer-songwriter music informed by grief, love and life.

Andrea leads us through his main thoroughfare, stopping at Enjoy Your Rabbit (2001) to Michigan (2003), Seven Swans (2004), Illinois (2005), The Avalanche (2006), The Age of Adz (2010), Carrie & Lowell (2015), The Ascension (2020), Convocations (20201) and stopping at his most recent rejuvenating album Javelin, released in the wake of the rare peek into Sufjan's private life - his coming out after speaking about the passing of his partner, and the autoimmune disease he has been rehabilitating from recently.

Special thanks to Georgia Hallion for editing this podcast episode.

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Nialler and Andrea Cleary are joined by pop culture writer and DJ Louise Bruton to discuss the chilling details that Britney Spears reveals about her career and private life.

That includes her treatment by the media, fame-hungry exes Justin Timblerake and Kevin Federline, the conservatorship, and the ultra-overbearing toxic role that her parents held over her for 13 years where they controlled what she ate, where she was allowed to live, how she performed and all manner of abuse-like behaviour including putting her in a mental health institute for taking energy supplements or refusing to do a dance move.

Britney was denied her own lawyer for 13 years but finally broke free of the conservatorship to regain control of her own life finally.

It’s a miracle that Britney is even alive after the harrowing experiences of what she’s lived through, and what her family put her through.

Louise and Pop Emergencies are presenting their annual Britmas at Wigwam in Dublin on Friday December 15th, in support of ActionAid's Gaza Crisis Appeal.

Special thanks to Georgia Hallion for editing this episode.

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• #FreeBritney: The Framing Britney Spears Documentary with Louise Bruton.

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Episode 232 has an exoskeleton theme of accidental spooky picks as we feature new albums from Kojaque, OXN, CMAT, Sufjan, Earl Sweatshirt & The Alchemist and new songs from The Last Dinner Party, I Dreamed I Dream, John Francis Flynn, Rachael Lavelle and Tandem Felix.

And a couple of oldie picks to round things out from William Onyeabor and Echo & The Bunnymen, along with the What's Consuming You corner with TV, books and films we are vibing with.

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With streaming paying pennies or less than for many artists, the independently-driven music platform Bandcamp is the last bastion of online revenue making for many bands - allowing musicians to sell their music digitally, and on vinyl or CD direct to their fans.

Artists on Bandcamp collectively earned $193 million in the last year alone, and Bandcamp has paid out $1.19 billion since its founding in 2007.

But recent business deals have meant Bandcamp was acquired by Songtradr, after a short 18 months owned by Epic Games. With the acquisition came news today that approximately half (60) of the Bandcamp staff of 118 employees, including the Bandcamp Daily team, had been laid off, with the entire negotiating team at the workers' union - Bandcamp United, let go.

We discuss what it means for independent musicians, what the alternatives are and also the other dodgy news this week, that NTS radio have been partially bought by Universal and Spotify is planning on reducing its royalty payouts to a minimum threshold so that many artists literally won't get a penny for their song streams.

All that, plus Niall shares his months-long local detective story, and Andrea talks about presenting PHD at a dance music conference in Huddersfield last week.

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• Thinking of ditching Spotify? Musician Joel Harkin explores alternative music platforms so you don’t have to
• Bandcamp alternatives: Faircamp / Nina / Tone Audio / Mirlo
• Interdependence Podcast
• First Floor Substack
• Dancecult conference
• Songs played on the Nialler9 Podcast Spotify Playlist

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Where Taylor couldn’t sell out Croke Park in 2018 on her Reputations tour, her current Eras tour as we’ve discussed before on the podcast, crashed Ticketmaster and has seen such a huge unprecedented demand that that’s worth exploring why?

With the three Dublin gigs at the Aviva next summer and the Taylor Swift Eras Tour film doing big numbers at the box office, it felt like the right time to dip in.

With Andrea’s absence this week, I thought I’d delve into the lore and fandom of the Swifties through the lens of a community which gather around Taylor once a month.

Swiftogedden is a club night that plays only Taylor songs all night, and was started by Dave Fawbert, a DJ and former journalist who put on his first Swiftogedden in London in 2019, and since then it has grown to a national UK and in the last two years an nationwide Irish event too.

Anna Jacob is a resident DJ at the Irish Swiftogedden club nights, and a pal of mine, and I’ve been fascinated with the success of the single artist only night – as Swifties gather en masse to sold out venues in Dublin, Cork, Belfast, Galway and Limerick along with a rake of UK cities to sing their hearts out to Swift classics, new songs, new versions and deep cuts.

Our chat covers fandom becoming a religious like community of like-minded people, why Taylor Swift is the new Mozart, a celebration of the “eras” of girlhood and womanhood, what happens at Swiftogedden nights and why does it work so well and we also read out some passages from this wonderful Taffy Brodesser-Akner New York Times piece on Swiftiedom.

* Support Nialler9 on Patreon, where we share Anna’s Swiftie Skeptics playlist.

• Taffy Brodesser-Akner piece on Swiftiedom [New York Times]
• Inside Dublin’s Swiftogeddon club night [Irish Times]
• Songs played on the Nialler9 Podcast Spotify Playlist
• All 237 of Taylor Swift’s Songs, Ranked [Rolling Stone]

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Recently, the artist has exploded in popularity in his DJ partnership with Skrillex and Fred Again.., but as we’ll discuss, headlining Coachella this year, was just a natural culmination of two decades plus of music making and collaborations.

On this week’s episode it is all about the music of Four Tet.

We discuss his origins in the Elliott School with fellow now-famous musicians Burial and Hot Chip, the formation of his first band Fridge, who signed their first record deal when Hebden was just 15.

We take you through an output that moves from jazz, folk, electronica stylings of his early work, the seminal album Rounds from 2003, his subsequent collaborations with Burial, Steve Reid, remixes work for the likes of Madvillain and Caribou, and how his live show worked.

// On Wednesday November 8th, we are putting on a Listening Party at the Big Romance playing Four Tet's Rounds (2003) in full, as part of the Listen Closely monthly series.

And onto his independent releases throughout the last 15 years as his music moves from the ambient instrumental electronic music to the more club-focused 4/4 tracks that came about as he began to DJ at Plastic People and DJ at festivals around the world.

We discuss his court case with Domino, and how his flirtations with remixing pop artists telegraph his bromance with Fred Again.. and Skrillex. Plus, we spotlight some of our favourite Four Tet / KH / Kieran Hebden Percussions tracks.

The Accompanying Four Tet playlist for the episode

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• Songs played on the Nialler9 Podcast Spotify Playlist

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On Episode 228 we are album focused with new LP chat about records from Mitski, Cleo Sol, The Alchemist, MIKE and Wiki; Olivia Rodrigo, Soda Blonde, Natalia Beylis and an EP from Soccer Mommy.

There are songs from Annika Kilkenny, Holly Humberstone and two Golden oldies from Anne Clark and Fountains Of Wayne.

Plus what's consuming you - Fringe Festival shows, Peter McGann, TV, books and films we are vibing with.

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To celebrate 10 years of Faber Books are reissuing Yeah Yeah Yeah (with a new chapter taking it up to present day) , along with its prequel Let's Do It: The Birth of Pop (the definitive story of the birth of Pop, from 1900 to the mid-fifties), both on paperback.

Along with the books, Bob Stanley also put together a compilation for Ace Records called Latin Freestyle - New York/Miami 1983 - 1992, in his words a crashing electro-funk sub genre of dance music.

It was the aural equivalent of a can of thirst-quenching Quatro or a Spanish Harlem dance-off, and it became the electronically constructed bridge between disco and house.

Latin Freestyle grew out of electro, and was a more female-fronted classic pop version with frequently Latina vocals, bleepy synth riffs, proto-house piano lines, drum machine hits and lyrics that harked back to '60s girl groups teenage concerns of heartbreak, boys and dancing.

We talk to Bob about the books and this subgenre of electro music that developed in New York and Miami in the early 80s and included Madonna, Debbie Deb, Shannon, Alisha, Company B, Lisa Lisa, Exposé, Taylor Dane and went on to influence music from the Bee Gees' Robin Gibb, Pet Shop Boys, Freeez and more.

A playlist of Latin Freestyle accompanies this episode on Patron. Sign up from €5 a month.

Patreon members get access to the the Discord community, special playlists, ad-free episodes, event discounts & more.

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• Songs played on the Nialler9 Podcast Spotify Playlist
• Latin Freestyle - New York/Miami 1983 - 1992 compilation

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Two British men, the Scotsman Bill Drummond and Englishman Jimmy Cauty created a notorious music project that engulfed the charts, aggravated the art world, upset the capitalists, annoyed the record industry and almost everyone else.

Other musicians have been known as provocateurs before but The KLF were on an whole other level, because they became a massive chart success, while posing questions about the validity of art, original ideas, creativity, commerce and capitalism.

This is the story of a band who did things like no one else, who had number 1 hits, who created art installations, defaced billboards, made cryptic advertisements, gave manic performances on Top of the Pops, fired machine gun blanks into the audience, became known as pranksters, and blew all the money in one huge notorious stunt.

We discuss their flagrant sampling of Abba and pop hits, their stadium house/rave chart-topping music, how to have a number one hit according to The Manual, a cult weekend on a Scottish Island, involving journalists, Wicker Man and Martin Sheen, The KLF's Brit Awards shenanigans, The K Foundation art stunts, and the literal burning of a million quid.

The KLF is a story like no other.

Patreon members get access to the the Discord community of like-minded music fans, special playlists, ad-free episodes, event discounts and more.

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• Songs played on the Nialler9 Podcast Spotify Playlist
• KLF on the Late Late Show in 1995
• The Manual: How to Have a Number One the Easy Way, 1988
• 
  

References: KLF.De / Who Killed The KLF documentary (2021)

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On Episode 225 we have album recommendations from The Hives, Citrus Fresh and Noname along with song inclusions from Sufjan, Diners, BadBadNotGood, Cartin, Barry Can't Swim and Olivia Rodrigo.

Plus what's consuming you, chat about live gigs from The Walkmen, Boygenius, Another Love Story Festival, and the Roisín Murphy thing.

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t's Richard D James, "the godfather of IDM", "the Mozart of Ambient,", the mischievous enigmatic man who I shook hands with once, the artist born in Limerick who has been making weird electronic music since he was the age of 14 for over 35 years now.

As Richard D James turns 52 this Friday, we take a chronological look through his back catalogue touching on the three main strands of his sound - ambient, experimental and dance. We discuss the myths around AFX, the famous 'Windowlicker' and 'Come To Daddy' videos in detail, the side-projects, the live show, the mischievous humour, the ubiquitous Richard D James face and much more.

Using quotes from the man in his many interviews, we figure out why the music of Aphex Twin is so unique, how he developed his own scales, how he builds his own instruments and studios, and how he has always been a composer and sound designer first, but also an abrasive techno merchant, a purveyor of acid, drill and bass, electro and creator of beautiful classical melodies.

Patreon members get access to the 3 Aphex Twin playlists mentioned - ambient, dance, experimental.

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• Songs played on the Nialler9 Podcast Spotify Playlist
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We review last weekend's All Together Now Festival in Waterford.

Niall shares his experiences of the festival's fourth year, a weekend in which ran the weather gamut from rainy to windy, muddy to sunny.

We talk highlights and lowlights, the mud, the rain, the wind, festival organisational logistics, stage sound, and tents nearly blowing away on Saturday morning.

In between the muck, there was great music and lots to discuss. We shared YOUR weekend experiences from those who emailed us, responded on Insta (we couldn't get to all 199 of you), Twitter and Discord callouts.

Plus, Andrea puts forward the case for more "quiet camping" areas.

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On Episode 222 we have selections from Big Thief, Sarah Crean, Andrea's pick of the Barbie soundtrack, another of Niall's song of the summer contenders, Fizz, Aluna, Mitski, The Hives, girlfriend, albums from Blur and Joanna Sternberg and some a tune tribute to Sinéad O'Connor.

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• Songs played on the Nialler9 Podcast Spotify Playlist

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The fallout of that action is at the centre of Kathryn Ferguson's new documentary about Sinead O'Connor - Nothing Compares - which is in cinemas this Friday.

Following the release of last year's Rememberings, O'Connor's biography, the film tells the story of Sinead's upbringing, subsequent success focusing on the early period of her career and the vindication of her actions at the time. Sinead O’Connor was ahead of her time.

The documentary celebrates a maverick artist, who never compromised her personal integrity or artistry, who was often ridiculed, and deemed the mad Irish women who shaved her head, who spoke up for minorities, criticised the church for child abuse coverups, Magdalene laundries (which she had direct experience of), and Ireland's fight for abortion rights.

These causes and beliefs are now mainstream but at the time, O'Connor was openly mocked for pointing out the abuses of power (especially in America, where she refused to allow the National Anthem to play before her concert) further fuelling an anti-patriotism sentiment around the Irish artist, that fundamentally altered her pop career, one that she never wanted anyway.

“I'm not a pop star. I'm just a troubled soul who needs to scream into mikes now and then.”

Sinead O’Connor was a protest singer, first and foremost. Joining Niall and Andrea to discuss the Sinead O'Connor film is pop critic Louise Bruton. We discuss her relationship with Byrne, the parallels to Britney and MIA, that Bob Dylan tribute concert, and the aforementioned themes from the film.

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Today's episode is all about my favourite subgenre of disco and dance music - Italo. What it is, where it came from and why it's so enduring.

Italo disco is a European form of electronic disco that proliferated throughout Europe in the early '80s. It’s a catch all term for 80s electronic pop of mostly Italian origin.

Italo is what happens when disco starts getting made with drum machines and synthesizers - a loveable curio of romantic pop, a tasteless yet tasteful novelty item, A simple music born at a time when music was increasingly sophisticated.

Italo is big fun electronic pop music that doesn't take itself too seriously. It is time capsule of a generally more innocent time of bad dancers, keytars, moustaches and chrome-shimmering fashion.

From Vice’s A Bullshitter's Guide To Italo-Disco by Angus Harrison

Niall and Andrea take you deep into how US disco morphed into Italo, how Moroder and Hi-NRG fits in, the characteristics of Italo disco, the glitz, the glamour and the keytars. Plus, we talk about the Nialler9 Podcast theme song - Red Dragon Band's 'Let Me Be Your Radio...

Patreon members get exclusive access to my 8 hour Italo Disco playlist featuring all of the songs played on this episode, which includes classics like

Doctor’s Cat – Feel The Drive

Mr. Flagio – Take A Chance

La Bionda – I Wanna Be Your Lover

RAF – Self-Control

Ken Laszlo – Hey Hey Guy

Ryan Paris – Dolce Vita

Sabrina – Boys

and many more.

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Balearic is often thought of as a signifier of music that is evocative, sun-kissed and downtempo, but as our deep dive discovers Balearic is a feeling, an approach, that encompasses those things but also can be cheesy, soft, rocking, easy listening, dancey, slowed-down, dreamy, psychedelic and as dance music writer Frank Tope put it “it’s pop music that sounds good on pills.”

The true origin story of Balearic is certain to includes the music selections of the Ibiza DJ Alfredo who DJed at Amnesia during the years of 1983 to 1988, just as all-night licences were coming to the Island.

You know Ibiza as the Balearic Island haven where superclubs bang out techno and house and big name DJs hold residencies now, but in the '80s, the story of clubbing in Ibiza was being built from the ground up.

Alfredo played an eclectic mix of pop, soul, disco, electronic, house, psych rock and Latin pop including Sade, The Cure, Derrick May, Simply Red, the Pink Panther Theme, Madonna, Richie Havens, Queen, psych rock wigouts, The Woodentops, and The Style Council, but was initially derided for his DJ sets.

Our tale of Balearic music is linked to the Bhagwan Oregon cult selling MDMA on the island, new age dropouts, hippies, and party jet-setters, chillout Cafe Del Mar sunsets, and a sunny island mecca that became a setting for ecstasy-fuelled music epiphanies, that spread dance and club culture throughout the UK and Europe.

• Songs played on the Nialler9 Podcast Spotify Playlist
• DJ Harvey on Balearica
• Did the Cult From 'Wild Wild Country' Introduce MDMA to Ibiza?
• Last Night A DJ Saved my Life - Bill Brewster, Bill Broughton
• Joe Muggs - The Balearic Aesthetic guide
• Alfredo Spotify Playlist
• Alfredo @ Amnesia, Ibiza (1985) / Youtube.
• Cian O'Ciobhain’s Balaeric special
• Balearic Beats
• Ritmo Fantasía: Balearic Spanish Synth-Pop, Boogie And House (1982-1992)

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You may have heard of the term Indie Sleaze lately. A term newly coined to describe a nostalgic trend of post-Y2K era of culture and aesthetics of indie music and parties that crossed cities and continents.

Niall and Andrea are talking indie-rock, blog house, nu-rave, electro-clash and the alternative scene of the years of 2004 to 2012 that gave us the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Crystal Castles, CSS, Uffie, MGMT, New Young Pony Club, MIA, Hipster Runoff, Mashups, The Cobrasnake’s hedonistic flash photography, Dublin clubs like Antics and spawned an Indie Sleaze instagram account.

So how are Gen Z co-opting the vibe of the era and is the Indie Sleaze trend just a Tik-Tok-enabled churn in nostalgia economy?

Plus, Louise McSharry, host of the new topical news podcast Catch Up, drops in to talk about her experiences of indie, electro and alternative of that time, the fashion and the tunes she still loves, and why she wants to start a club night in the era’s honour.

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• Our Indie Sleaze night with guest DJ Louise McSharry.

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Michael's new book Reach for the Stars is a rip-roaring oral history of UK pop music between 1996 and 2006, told through the interviews with the popstars, the songwriters, producers, label executives, pop fans, svengalis and culture writers of the day.

It's an unputdownable behind-the-scenes history of British pop music that tells the story of the Spice Girls, 5ive, Steps, S Club 7, Atomic Kitten, Girls Aloud, JLS, Liberty X, Sugababes, The X-Factor and more.

The book contains many anecdotes like Geri Halliwell missing the Spice Girls audition because she had sunburn or 5ive saying 'Baby One More Time' is " ” to Max Martin's face.

We spoke to Michael about pop stars' mad schedules, the lack of mental health awareness, Xenomania, the moguls like Pete Waterman; the homophobia around boy bands coming out, TOTP, Smash Hits and the media landscape of the day, and the crazy pressure they were under in which a number two record is considered was failure.

Michael Cragg will also be appearing for an interview and Q&A with our pal Louise Bruton at the Smash Hits Poll Winners Party on Saturday July 15th at Wigwam. Tickets are on Eventbrite.

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• Buy Reach For The Stars
• Michael Cragg Author Interview and Pop Party on July 15th

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On Episode 219 we have selections from King Krule, The Hives, Bright Eyes, Peter Gabriel, Maija Sofia, Glasser, Slaughter Beach, Dog, Niall's song of the summer contender and some oldie shouts from Surfers, Freestylers, Joy Anonymous and Bikini Kill.

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Episode 218 of the Nialler9 Podcast then, sees Niall take the reins of the going out buzz after last week's Andrea Goes To Slane episode.

It was a busy festival weekend with Beyond The Pale, Body & Soul and Seas Sessions all taking place in Ireland this past weekend. Niall went to the first two for Body & Soul Festival on Friday and Saturday and then festival hopped to Beyond The Pale on the Sunday.

He shares his experiences of both, from the weather to the site cleanliness to the highlights, lowlights and an attempt to answer the question that was om everyone's lips - why was Beyond The Pale and Body & Soul clashing on the same weekend?

There were thunderstorms, lightning, big sets, stage time delays, vibe checks and crowd checks to consider.

Plus, we share your highlights and lowlights from your festival weekend experiences from our Insta and Discord callouts.

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22 years (!) after Nialler was last at the big annual concert in Meath, Andrea makes her first trip to Slane for the Harry Styles concert and our roving vibe reporter is here to share her experiences from the gig day out, the food on offer, and the car park saga after.

Plus, there's a look at the recent Why Not Her? radio report, a new official Beatles song via AI, some fascinating facts culled from the recent New Yorker piece on the Ed Sheeran/ Marvin Gaye copyright case

Plus, the US plan to hike up artist visa prices from $460 to $1,615 per individual musician or crew member, meaning a lot less international touring acts going to America to play if it goes through.

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On Episode 216, there are some "face eggs"-themed albums from Water From Your Eyes, Eyes Of Others and Caoilian Sherlock along with song choices from Gurriers, Blur, Kieran Hebden + William Tyler, Bricknasty, Buck Meek and two oldies from The Fall and Glasser.

And for those of you who appreciate our usual Succession talk, this week, there is a 40 minute BONUS EPISODE available on the Patreon for subscribers only, where we discuss the Succession finale episode.

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Songs played on the Nialler9 Podcast Spotify Playlist

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For this week's episode (#215), Andrea Cleary, takes the lead for a deep dive into the life and times of Cass Elliot, the late-60s singer who recently went viral when a Tik-Tok user used her song 'Make Your Own Kind Of Music' on a meme with Nicolas Cage / Pedro Pascal from the film The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent.

The song's virality has lead to a reappraisal of the legacy of the singer, whose established narrative can now be seen through a lens of fatphobia and unfair treatment of women in the industry and society at large.

Andrea takes us through her life and times on this fascinating episode.

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