Bloc Party's Silent Alarm: Revisiting a spiky 2005 indie classic (Live Podcast)

We gathered to listen through one of the most singular debut albums ever made. Here's the recording of the chat. Niall is joined at our live listening event Listen Closely in the Big Romance by Cian Galvin aka Irish hip-hop producer and crate digger The Expert to discuss... DJ Shadow - Endtroducing (1996) A towering achievement in sample-based plunderphonics, music arrangements and turntablist-lead production techniques, DJ Shadow's 1996's debut album Endtroducing remains one of the most evocative and singular classic albums of recent times. Entirely built of obscure crate-dug samples using an Akai MPC60 sampler, Endtroducing's cinematic soundscapes finds a transportive space where emotionally resonant electronica and hip-hop meet - the middle ground between light and shadow. It is considered one of the best albums of all-time, and is certainly one of mine. * Support Nialler9 on Patreon, get event discounts, playlists, ad-free episodes and join our Discord community Listen on Apple | Android  | Patreon | Pocketcasts | CastBox | Stitcher | Spotify | RSS Feed | Pod.Link The third instalment of our loosely titled Plunderphonics series for the Nialler9 Listening Party brought us to a record that, thirty years on, still doesn't quite sound like anything else. DJ Shadow's Endtroducing, released September 16th 1996 on Mo' Wax, is a record built entirely from other records - and yet it sounds like nothing any of those records ever sounded like. If you missed the night, the podcast recording is above. What follows is a bit of context and some of what we got into. The trilogy so far We've now done The Avalanches' Since I Left You and J Dilla's Donuts as part of this loose series. All three are sample-based records. All three feel like complete worlds unto themselves. There's something about the constraint of working entirely within found sound that produces a particular kind of magic - you're hearing music that was already forgotten being given an entirely new life, filtered through the taste and instincts of one person with a singular obsession. Endtroducing is the most melancholic of the three. It's not a party record or a rap record in any conventional sense. It's a cinematic, introspective piece of work - breakbeats, jazz, psychedelia, hip-hop, all of it dissolved into something that feels like its own atmosphere. The kid from Davis, California Josh Davis grew up in Davis, California, then San Jose - both outside the main cultural centres, which is something he and Mo' Wax founder James Lavelle bonded over immediately when they first spoke by phone. Lavelle had grown up in Oxford. Both felt like outsiders to the scenes they were drawn to. Shadow was experimenting with a four-track recorder in high school and DJing on the campus radio station KDVS at UC Davis before he'd made a single release. By 1993 he was part of the Solesides underground hip-hop collective alongside Blackalicious, Lateef, and Lyrics Born. Lavelle found him through a B-side remix on a forgotten hip-hop promo, tracked him down through a friend at Tommy Boy Records, and told him: "Don't worry about choruses and verses, just push your sound further." That's more or less what he did. The equipment The entire album was made on an Akai MPC60 II, a pair of turntables, and an Alesis ADAT tape recorder that belonged to Dan the Automator. Shadow was 23 years old. The MPC could sample 2.5 seconds of stereo and store 13 seconds total. Everything on the record - the beats, the melodies, the percussion - had to be constructed within those limits. Self-imposed limitation producing something that infinite digital possibilities probably couldn't. There's a reason we don't really get records like this anymore, and it's partly because the tools have become too open-ended. The seams and the constraints are part of what gives Endtroducing its particular texture. The crates Shadow spent his days in the basement of Rare Records in Sacramento, a shop with records piled to t

This month's music selector guest is the NYC and Ireland music fan Lauren Kennedy, who went viral for her Track Star video last year. Lauren Kennedy is the Athlone woman who has lived in New York for the last six years and is known for the viral video on the Track Star Youtube channel where she won $20,500 for correctly guessing all of the Irish bands selected for her on the show. Lauren very soundly donated all the money to the Palestine Children's Relief Fund. It was her second time on the show, after her first appearance where she was surprised by Bon Iver. You may, like me have been following her gig escapades in recent months in NYC where she went to see a load of Irish bands who were over to play. Lauren just moved back to Ireland for the summer so a perfect time to welcome this legend back to the country by catching up with the music she's loving at the moment. Music discussed and chosen on the episode from Dove Ellis, Florence Road, David Kitt, Rua Rí, Shamrock Showband, The Last Dinner Party, Getdown Services, Crying Loser, Lemoncello and Fundido. My Best albums of April piece. Listen on Apple | Android | Patreon | Pocketcasts | CastBox | Stitcher | Spotify | RSS Feed | Podlink * Support Nialler9 on Patreon, get event discounts, playlists, ad-free episodes and access our Discord community.

Kate Nash is one of the most interesting artists working in British and Irish music right now.   You might know her from 'Foundations', the debut single that went to number one in the UK in 2007, or maybe winning a BRIT Award for Best Female Artist in 2008 or the excellent Netflix TV show GLOW on Netflix about female wrestlers.  But the Kate Nash of the last few years is an advocate for artists who kicks against the pricks of the music industry and the world at large.  In the last couple of years alone she has given testimony before a UK parliamentary select committee about the economics of touring, losing £26,000 on a European tour leg and covering those losses by selling photos of her arse on OnlyFans. She's travelled around London on a fire engine visiting the offices of Live Nation and Spotify as part of her Butts for Tour Buses campaign. She is a patron of the Music Venue Trust speaking up for grassroots venues. She's been one of the founding members of the Featured Artists Coalition since 2009.  She played the Trans Mission show at Wembley. She's been to Leinster House. She also released trans ally anthem 'GERM'. Nash  grew up in North Harrow going to Irish dancing at weekends, listening to Christy Moore and the Dubliners at home, spending summers in Ireland. Last month, Nialler9 debuted her cover of Sinead O’Connor’s Famine - a song that serves as an introduction to her dual Irish English heritage. So there is a lot to talk to Kate Nash about. Listen on Apple | Android | Patreon | Pocketcasts | CastBox | Stitcher | Spotify | RSS Feed | Podlink   * Support Nialler9 on Patreon, get event discounts, playlists, ad-free episodes and access our Discord community.

This month's best of the month podcast guest is Manchester-based Irish BBC 6 Music presenter Deb Grant. 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. Listen on Apple | Android | Patreon | Pocketcasts | CastBox | Stitcher | Spotify | RSS Feed | Podlink * Support Nialler9 on Patreon, get event discounts, playlists, ad-free episodes and access our Discord community.

The 1998 album marked a turn for the trip-hop visionary band's to the dark side. Niall is joined by Craig Fitzpatrick discuss the record in front of a live audience at at Listen Closely, our series of monthly album listening parties in the Big Romance. Massive Attack - Mezzanine (1998) 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.   Listen on Apple | Android  | Patreon | Pocketcasts | CastBox | Stitcher | Spotify | RSS Feed | Pod.Link * Support Nialler9 on Patreon, get event discounts, playlists, ad-free episodes and join our Discord community