Culture File

Twelve Microtonal Etudes for Electronic Music Media: musician-academic-composer Richard Duckworth joins Colm Tóibín and Luke Clancy for an extended encounter with US composer, Easley Blackwood's electro masterpiece. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Sound artist and recordist Kate Carr talks to Culture File about her sonic practice and principles, and the importance of messy urban soundscapes. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Twelve Microtonal Etudes for Electronic Music Media: musician-academic-composer, Richard Duckworth joins Colm Tóibín and Luke Clancy for an encounter with US composer, Easley Blackwood's electro masterpiece. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

For the latest version of his Culchie boy, I Love You exhibition, artist Kian Benson Bailes, has added in some ceramic flutes, with which he finds some tunes, as part of his exploration of traditional Irish culture and storytelling. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Silence: Dr. Autumn Brown invites Colm Toibin and Luke Clancy to join her on a journey out of the Comfort Zone and into silence, in all its shapes, durations and uncanny effects. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Cityscape-appreciating sound artist ,Kate Carr, on her urban practice; Dublin-based musician-composer-carpenter, Zoe Basha on getting into and out of music; and how to play mini-golf in your "fursona" with Berlin's favorite pianist-fox, CoVahr. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Silence: Dr. Autumn Brown invites Colm Toibin and Luke Clancy to join her on a journey out of the Comfort Zone and into silence, in all its shapes, durations and uncanny effects. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Culture File Debate broadcasts live from Eyeries Village Hall, Rachel Andrews is your host with three panelists who will give a broad and unique understanding to the myth of An Cailleach Beara (The Hag of Beara), to give listeners context to this myth ahead of the two hour Ambient Orbit following it.. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Keening: Fermanagh composer and musician, Róis brings some of the few surviving recordings of keening in the old style into The Comfort Zone, where the conversation with Colm Toibin turns to JM Synge, RIP.ie and real "doomscrolling" See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Lasagne: authentic Italian cucina, a basic microwave meal and a way of understanding language, memory, literature and reality? Derry poet and novelist, Suasannah Dickey brings the dish and its many metaphors out to play with Colm Toibin. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The frontline of knitting, DIY monuments and macabre collections, and our latest suggestion for books to include on the ideal Naturalist's Bookshelf. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

German poet and traveller, Joachim Sartorius, author of Syracuse: Sicily’s City of Stories, talks to Luke Clancy about the histories and happenings of his adopted home.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Syracuse: Historical novelist, Ferdia Lennon, whose book Glorious Exploits was set in ancient Syracuse, joins Colm Tóibín and Luke Clancy for a verbal trip to the storied Sicilian city. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Booker Prize winner Samantha Harvey, nature writer Helen Macdonald, novelist Sin Blaché and investigative journalist Andrei Soldatov share their favourite photographs of themselves, and explore how writers navigate self-presentation—from intimate portraits to author photos and ID cards—in a culture overflowing with selfies and digital identities. Recorded Live at Borris Festival of Writing And Ide...

The Row Bag: Author and academic, Rachel O'Dwyer brings her favourite luxury "dupe" into the Comfort Zone, where the conversation with Colm Tóibín takes in Bretton Woods, globalised labour and the extinction of the novel as we knew it.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Tortured Poets Department: art writer Orit Gat joins Luke Clancy to wave Colm Tóibín off on a journey out of his comfort zone, and into the Taylor Swift Cinematic Universe. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Caravaggio is celebrated this summer in Rome with a once-in-a-lifetime meetup of paintings normally living in museums around the world. Colm Toibin, Orit Gat and Luke Clancy went to see that blockbuster in the Barberini - as well as the many Caravaggios that are permanent Roman residents - and then gathered to imagine what the painter might mean to the 21st century. See omnystudio.com/listener for...

Artist, Marianne Keating on her archival voyage into the lives of Irish migrants to the UK; Tadgh O'Sullivan's further encounters with artworks that never were; and harpist, Alannah Thornburgh plays the tunes of the fairy folk. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

After Life: Aisling Kelliher joins Luke Clancy to wave Colm Tóibín off on a journey out of his comfort zone, and into the everyday supernatural of Hirokazu Kore-eda's 1998 film about work in an office debriefing the recently departed. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Mulholland Drive: Anna Kornbluh ("Immediacy") joins Luke Clancy to wave Colm Tóibín off on a journey out of his comfort zone, and into David Lynch's mysterious, melancholic drift into Hollywood's dream machine/mincer. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Conductor, teacher and former King Singer, Gabriel Crouch, on the mysteries of the late composer Jóhann Jóhannsson "not classical" "not mass" work, Drone Mass. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Recorded live at New Music Dublin 2025 at the NCH in Dublin, the panel explores how creative practices engage with the quiet space of loud sound, as well as the roles of quiet/loud in the contemporary attention economy, with Paula Meehan, Siobhán Cleary, John Godfrey, and Christine Tobin. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Ghost bands and circus values, with LA artist, Marnie Weber; Tadgh O'Sullivan on art that never was; and an in-the-end surprisingly pleasant visit to Berlin's Disgusting Food Museum. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Percussionist, James Larter reboots of the Four Season; the allure of ancient craft in New York; and Paddy Woodworth suggests a new old volume about New England as essential reading for today. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Classical music and hiphop meet with a bang in Belfast composer, Anselm McDonnell's latest project; the textile stories of Gee's Bend, Alabama at a new show at IMMA; and a program of premiers of chamber music from Black and Latiné composers at next month's New Music Dublin. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.