Nialler9

Why J Dilla was such an influential producer

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.
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Our music picks of March [Subscriber Podcast preview]

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), 

Moving Still's Irish-Arab electronic bangers are having a moment 🔥

Jamal Sul has been making Irish Arabic electronic music as Moving Still since 2016. His productions link his Arabic heritage, with his love of synthesizers, dance music and buzzy bangers.
Moving Still’s music is unique in how it brings together styles of music from the  SWANA region (Southwest Asia and North Africa) with European and American club genres like Italo, electro, acid, breakbeats, house and more.
Jamal's project has been in the ascendancy with releases on Cooking with Palms Trax, Orange Tree Edits, Dar Disku and his latest Close To The Shams EP on the Bordello A Parigi label.
His 2022 Boiler Room set from London is an all-timer for me, and his Ouddy Bangers series has seen him put a club edit spin on pop, disco and dance classics from Lebanon, Egypt, Morocco and Kuwait.
I talk to Jamal about all of it: his big gigs, productions, edits, influences, heritage and how Ireland has been slow to catch up on Moving Still until recently. And he picks a selection of songs that has inspired his music (listed below).
Up next on the DJ front for Moving Still is the latest edition of Klub Sukar at Yamamori Tengu on Saturday April 19th. 
Tracks played:
Moving Still - Al Disco Haram
Cheick Madani - Laya Habibi
Ragheb Alama - El hob al Kabir
Marvellous Melodicos - sing oh (zagalo mix)
Moving Still -La Titasil Feeya
Haruomi Hosono - Laugh Gas
Omar Souleyman  - Warni Warni
Moving Still - Bang of Luban
Ahmed Fakroun - Soleil Soleil
Ihsan Al Munzer - Jamilah
Ettab - Ghorba Wa Moghtaribin (Exile and Exiled)
Chaba Yamina - Sidi Mansour (Moving Still Edit)
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I was duped by an AI musician

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 parallels with what's happening with AI and music right now. AI is breaking new ground, and creating new problems and moral issues in doing so.
Colm recently posted a ruminating article on AI on Fourth Best, which talks to an artist called Kawaii Hoe who inadvertently, and relatively innocently duped me into covering their energetic AI-generated hyperpop music on the site - Like I said it's the Wild Wild West.
We talk about this scary new world of not knowing whether an artist is making music entirely with AI or not, and the implications and creative quandary of generated art.
Because you can now make a full music project with AI, does that mean you should? Are AI musicians just really gifted at prompts? Are the outputs music?
As AI music flooded streaming platforms, social media and we cannot put the genie back in the bottle, what’s next? As Liz Pelly’s book shows, Spotify will do what it can to reduce royalty rates so what’s to stop it from replacing real artist’s music with AI-generated music? Isn’t this already happening whether they allow it or not?
  
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Mood Machine - A conversation with Liz Pelly about Spotify

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 talk to Liz about the Swedish streaming giant's outsized influence on the music industry, its gatekeeper effect on trends in music, and how Spotify has emphasised mood and passive listening above discovery and initiative.
We talk about the vast collection of user behaviour on the platform that has lead to artists chasing a more homogenous "streambait pop" sound, how Spotify uses  fake "ghost" artists and their Perfect Fit Content system to reduce royalty rates and squeeze out real artists on the platform's popular algorithmic and editorial playlists.
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Our best of February's music

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 Thrills and breaking news - nepobaby Lola Kirke.
We also chat about films we've seen lately including A Complete Unknown, Civil War, Companion and pick an Italo Disco classic that featured in The Brutalist and an even better song from the same act.
 
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Ólafur Arnalds on making a record with Talos before his passing

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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Songs referenced on the Nialler9 Podcast Spotify Playlist
 
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The new 2025 season of Music is really good so far isn’t it?

 
 
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 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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Songs played on the Nialler9 Podcast Spotify Playlist
 
 
 
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David Kitt on 14 years of his electronic project New Jackson

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.* Support Nialler9 on Patreon, get event discounts, playlists, ad-free episodes and join our Discord communityListen on Apple | Android | ACAST | Patreon | Pocketcasts | CastBox | Stitcher | Spotify | RSS Feed | Pod.Link Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The best music of January [Patreon Preview]

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].* Support Nialler9 on Patreon, get event discounts, playlists, ad-free episodes and join our Discord communityListen on Apple | Android | ACAST | Patreon | Pocketcasts | CastBox | Stitcher | Spotify | RSS Feed | Pod.Link Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.