The West Kerry DJ and radio presenter Cian Ó Cíobháin marks 25 years of An Taobh Tuathail, his alternative new music show which has been running for five nights a week on RTÉ Raidió na Gaeltachta since 1999. 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,...

Episode 247 is a deep dive into a seminal '90s debut album from Fiona Apple.Fiona Apple – Tidal (1996)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...

Niall and Andrea are talking about the A B, and Cs of Cowboy Carter, Beyoncé’s eighth studio album on Episode 246. 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...

It’s the Nialler9 Podcast’s monthly episode where Niall and Andrea talk about the albums and songs they loved this month. 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. * Support Nialler9 on Patreon, get event...

This month's deep dive Listen Closely album is: Portishead - Dummy (1994) 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...

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 IsraelKneecap'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...

It’s the Nialler9 Podcast’s monthly episode where Niall and Andrea talk about the albums and songs they loved in the last four weeks. 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. * Support Nialler9 on...

On this near-annual episode, Niall and Andrea are joined by writer and journalist Sophia McDonald to discuss the 10 nominated albums in this year’s Choice Music Prize Irish album of the year 2023 category, as chosen by 11 judges.   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 hosts of the Nialler9 Podcast (Niall Byrne and Andrea Cleary) in conjunction with The Big Romance present the Listen Closely series of listening parties, a night featuring a focus album from an artist we love on the last Wednesday of the month. 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:  Laurie Anderson – Big Science...

On this week's pod, it's a deep dive into an album from one of our perennial favourites, as it celebrates 20 years. 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...

The Nialler9 Podcast returns for another season and new year. 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 nomineesThe Eurovision Song Contest and the growing call for the Boycott...

Our final podcast of the year is the fun rapid-fire Podcast Awards! 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 gigBest live performance Villain of the yearThing we'd like to go awayBest opening song lyricBest bagpipes soloThe Alan Maguire Award horny for photoshoots awardBest rap guest verse(s) aka The Andre 3000 awardRap beat of the yearBest new bandsSurprising sample of the...

It's the second of our end of year podcasts as Nialler and Andrea Cleary talk 12 albums they loved this year. 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. * Support Nialler9 on Patreon, get event discounts, playlists, ad-free episodes and join our Discord community Listen to the episode below...

Episode 235 features Nialler and Andrea Cleary highlighting some of their favourite songs of the year. 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. * Support Nialler9 on Patreon, get event discounts, playlists, ad-free episodes and join our...

Episode 234 is the latest in the occasional series of the podcast - Andrea's favourite weird little guy. 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...

On this week’s podcast, episode 233, we are talking about what we learned from fairly shocking Britney Spears’ new autobiography The Woman In Me. 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...

It's the Nialler9 Podcast's monthly episode where Niall and Andrea talk about the albums and songs they loved in the last four weeks. 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...

This week's episode is a chat around the sale of Bandcamp from Epic Games to Songtradr.  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...

The Fandom of Taylor Swift is something that I find so fascinating, particularly the massive surge in popularity in the last 3 or 4 years. 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...

 English electronic musician Kieran Hebden has been a constant artist in my life’s history of listening to music. 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...

It's the Nialler9 Podcast's monthly episode where Niall and Andrea talk about the albums and songs we loved in the last four weeks. 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,...

On Episode 227, we are joined by the acclaimed music writer Bob Stanley, the man behind one of Niall's favourite books Yeah Yeah Yeah: The Story of Modern Pop and a member of indie-pop group St. Etienne. 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...

The Justified Ancients Of Mu Mu, the JAMs, the Timelords, The KLF. Episode 226 is a look at the UK band that simultaneously topped the pop charts while being divisive art provocateurs. 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...

It's the Nialler9 Podcast's monthly episode where Niall and Andrea talk about the albums and songs they loved in the last four weeks. 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. * Support Nialler9 on Patreon, get...