Our best of April's albums and songs

K.Dot’s first masterpiece album is a coming-of-age story with Kendrick navigating life in Compton, resisting peer pressure, destructive behaviour and trying to stay righteous in a corrupted world.

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.   * 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 Irish-Palestinian singer and filmmaker speaks about embracing her Arabic heritage in her music, and the resurgence of interest in keening and Irish folklore.

It’s DILLA TIME 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. * 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  

Our monthly  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 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),