This month’s guest returns after her January visit — it’s music writer Vanessa Roulston Mooney, fresh from Jack White, Primavera and Féile na Gréine.
We start with the big one: Phoebe Bridgers’ Lost Weekend, her first solo album in six years, and whether an hour of cosmic, string-drenched, banjo-flecked ambition is too much of a good thing.
Then James Ellis Ford’s Lost In Another World, written and recorded alone from a hospital bed in two weeks during leukaemia treatment, and somehow the most accessible thing he’s made referencing OMD and Blue Nile. That leads us to J Dilla, who made much of Donuts the same way, and to Dilligence 2, where Busta Rhymes finally uses some of the 300 beats Dilla handed him before he died in 2006, with D’Angelo, Lil Wayne, T3, Talib Kweli, Ludacris and Jon Batiste along for it.
Also: GB’s Heirsprung, its lyrics cut up from free copies of the London Metro and funded by a Jaguar ad; Never-Never’s Colour Form, and the Copenhagen music school quietly producing half the artists Vanessa loves – Erika de Casier, ML Buch, Fine, Snuggle and GB all came through the same place; Cornelius’ eighth album; Pulp’s first ever live album, somehow; the short, sharp MF DOOM vibes of Denzel Curry and Kenneth Blume’s 2; the debut from scuzzy, fizzy Dublin rockers Really Good Time; and the electro-clashing, indie-sleazing EP from Mischa And The Bear.
Plus Erykah Badu and the Alchemist, Dolly, Jack White’s phone pouches, what we’re reading, and the gigs ahead.
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Plus Dolly, Jack White’s phone pouches, what we’re reading, and the gigs ahead.
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Niall Byrne is the founder of the most-influential Irish music site Nialler9, where he has been writing about music since 2005. He is the co-host of the Nialler9 Podcast and has written for the Irish Times, Irish Independent, Sunday Times, Totally Dublin, Cara Magazine, Red Bull and more. Niall is a DJ, co-founder of Lumo Club, event curator, Indie Sleaze club promoter, and producer of gigs and monthly listening parties & events in Dublin.
