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, 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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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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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 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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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 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

Show notes:

• Support Nialler9 on Patreon, get event discounts, playlists, ad-free episodes and join our Discord community

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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.

Show notes:

• Support Nialler9 on Patreon, get event discounts, playlists, ad-free episodes and join our Discord community

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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 episodes and join our Discord community

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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 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:

• Nialler9 on Patreon - event discounts, playlists, ad-free episodes & join our Discord

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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.

Show notes:

• Support Nialler9 on Patreon, get event discounts, playlists, ad-free episodes and join our Discord community

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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 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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