Nialler9

Would you identify an AI song if you pressed play on one? Colm Cahalane and Niall explore what's happening in AI and music now, with an example drawn from the Irish music scene in recent months.

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 parall...

The music and cultural critic Liz Pelly's new book Mood Machine: The Rise of Spotify and the Cost of the Perfect Playlist is a deep dive into Spotify's often contentious position in music today.

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 ta...

Our monthly episode in which Nialler and Andrea Cleary talk about their favourite music of the month.

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 T...

The composer and producer, and multi-instrumentalist Ólafur Arnalds met the Cork singer-songwriter Eoin French aka Talos after he ran a marathon in Iceland. A friendship was struck, that quickly developed into a musical partnership, as seen at Sounds From A Safe Harbour in Cork in 2023, when the festival director Mary Hickson put the pair together for a collaboration.

Now six months after Eoin's death,  Arnalds and French's family,...

 

 

Niall and Andrea are running our mouths over what's been happening in mainstream music to this year.

 

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 toge...

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.

...

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

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 St...

Our final podcast of the year is the fifth annual Nialler9 Podcast Awards.

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 mu...

Episode 272, the second of our Best of 2024 trilogy of podcasts is all about the albums of the year. Andrea and Niall share a selection of their favourite albums of the year.

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.

Show notes:

• Support Nialler9 on Patreon, get event discounts, playlists, ...

Episode 271 kicks off our Best of 2024 trilogy of podcasts with a look at the songs that defined our year.

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:

• Support Nialler9 on Patreon, get event discounts, playlists, ad-free e...

The Best of the Month episode is now Patreon-only. Public subscribers get the first 25 minutes or so.

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 bee...

Podcast 269 is all about the 23rd edition of Other Voices in Dingle and some of the acts playing the Jameson Music Trail from November 29th to December 1st.

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 ...

Earlier this year, the Tallaght rapper Curtisy released the debut album What Was The Question? one of the finest Irish rap albums, nay, Irish albums of the year.

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...

Episode 267 with Andrea and Niall sharing their favourite music of the month. [Patreon Preview]

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), Deat...

Tyler, The Creator dropped his seventh studio album Chromakopia on Monday morning after only announcing the album a matter of days before release.

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 ta...

Niall chats to Ray O'Donohue, the recently appointed Night-Time Economy Advisor for Dublin City.

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 l...

The Scottish duo's 1998 debut album is the subject of this month's Listen Closely listening party and podcast.

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 t...

From now on, the Best of the Month episode is Patreon-only. Public subscribers get the first 25 minutes or so. Patreon members get to hear the whole episode on their member feeds or on Patreon direct.

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 ...

Last Friday, Culture Night in Dublin, the Tola Vintage shop in Temple Bar's annual block party was shut down by the Gardaí, and three people were arrested. The police actions were met with criticism for the use of excessive force and suggestions of an underlying racial motivation.

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 ...