The Point of Everything

It's the 300th episode of the TPOE podcast!!! To celebrate, we asked some friends of the show to pick their favourite moment/gig/song/album of the past nine years or so since the show began (summer 2015, since you ask). Thanks to everybody who's listened to TPOE, thanks to all the guests over the years, and thanks to Irish music! You'll hear from: 13.45: Niamh Regan 16.01: Swimmers Jackson 20.55:...

Neil O'Connor aka Ordnance Survey released his latest album Turas (Journey) on December 1 and talks through the tracks and creative process in this interview. He says Turas (Journey) is the most ambitious Ordnance Survey record to date. The field recordings used on Turas were captured with both analog and digital devices at passage and wedge tombs across Meath, West Cork, Wicklow, Connemara and Ro...

It's the annual Choice Music Prize Preview Special with John Barker (Tilt - https://twitter.com/JohnBarkerTilt) as we run through each of the acts nominated for Irish album of the year 2023 and try to predict who will win the prize on March 7. The 10 acts nominated for the prize (and who we discuss in this order) are: Grian Chatten – Chaos For The Fly (Partisan Records) CMAT – Crazymad, For Me (CM...

To mark season 22 of Other Voices, which begins on RTÉ 2 and RTÉ Player on February 29, one of the hottest bands in the country, Gurriers, who played St James' Church in Dingle for the show in December, and host Maykay join the TPOE podcast. Gurriers started in January 2020 and have released a string of excellent singes since, including latest track 'Des Goblin'. Frontman Dan Hoff talks about how...

Berlin-based Dublin artist David Hedderman released his debut album Pulling at the Briars on February 9, 2024, and talks through all of it in this track-by-track interview. From the press release: Written over a 15-year period, Pulling at the Briars captures a transitional period for Hedderman during which he relocated to Berlin, Germany from Dublin, Ireland in the mid-2000s. The initial months an...

Cork-based artist Elaine Malone released her debut album Pyrrhic on September 8, 2023. On this episode, Elaine talks through each of its nine tracks, discussing working with Cathal MacGabhainn, who recorded it; her band (Ruairi Dale, Sam Clague, James Christie), the Cork scene, supporting the likes of Mary Wallopers, Protomartyr, and Bob Mould, the problem with the term 'singer songwriter', confid...

Dublin-based artist Naoise Roo released her second album Emotionally Magnificent on October 27 and brings the curtain down on the project with 'The Last Headline Show Ever Probably' at the Workman's Club on Friday, February 2, featuring special guests Paddy Hanna and Clara Tracey and support from Danny Carroll. On this episode, Naoise talks about some of the reasons why the project is coming to an...

The Cope aka Joe Furlong and David Anthony Curley released their debut album Dancer on December 8, 2023. The genesis of DANCER traces back to the isolating lockdown period, when global communities yearned for physical connection, and dance floors lay dormant. Sensing an opportune moment, the duo embarked on a creative journey to craft a musical opus that encapsulates the collective longing for com...

Brian Dillon, one part of Meltybrains, released his second solo album under the moniker The Line on November 1, 2023. Entitled Red Blood Cells and Righteousness, it's an album full of collaborations, featuring Lullahush, Fehdah and Loah, Sarah Corcoran (Pillow Queens), Sorcha Richardson, Talos, God Knows and Murli, and lots more. On this episode, we talk through all the tracks on the album and dis...

Dublin composer, producer, and multi-instrumentalist RF Chaney released his debut solo album Tropism at the end of November 2023. He says it reveals his unique ‘chamber-electronic’ compositional approach that strives to tastefully combine rich textures of synthesisers and electronic instruments with Nordic jazz inspired acoustic instrumentation of saxophones, clarinets and double bass. Tropism was...

It's a special bumper festive edition of the TPOE podcast as a host of friends help us wrap up the year in music, via interviews in person, over Zoom and through voicenotes. They talk about how the year was for them in general and what they've been up to, their favourite albums, songs, and gigs, favourite Christmas song, and what we can expect from them in 2024. Running order: 4.17: Clare Sands 8....

The Scratch, a four-piece from Dublin born from a shared love of metal and trad music, released their second studio album Mind Yourself on November 3. Dock, Lango and Jordo talk through the nine songs track by track today, talking along the way about where they fit in the trad scene, the themes across the album, including alcoholism and begrudgery, and what it was like working with co-producer Jam...

Super Extra Bonus Party (Gavin Elsted, Gary Clarke, Cormac Brady, Stephen Fahey) released their long-awaited third album Late Nite 99 in September, about 14 years after second record Night Horses. We talk through the album track by track, from how a mate's post-five-a-side ice-cream inspired the title to their friendship and collaborations with Nina Hynes. We talk about singing vs instrumentals an...

John Francis Flynn released his second album Look Over the Wall, See the Sky on November 10, receiving rave reviews from the likes of the Quietus, which called it "an album full of generosity and insight, songs that show us to ourselves in the way perhaps only folk music can", and Stereogum, Ryan Leas hailing it as "a stunning level-up from an already fascinating artist". We talked on a cold Novem...

Rachael Lavelle released her long-awaited debut album Big Dreams on November 10. A brilliant collection of 10 tracks, the press release says: Big Dreams is an existential coming-of-age album that chronicles the journey of a young woman searching for direction and meaning in a very strange world. Inspired by sounds of everyday life and an intriguing obsession with YouTube self-help videos, the albu...

David Tapley aka Tandem Felix released his second album There's a New Sheriff in Town on October 20. He talks us through the nine tracks that comprise the record, becoming the pedal streel player of choice in Irish music, and how and why BJ Cole (who played pedal steel on Elton John's 'Tiny Dancer') and Joseph Shabason (Destroyer) came to feature on the record. Tandem Felix Irish tour dates: Novem...

Luke Reilly aka Blood Donor released his debut album Autofiction on October 6. Former frontman of the Choice Prize-nominated band Otherkin, he talks about why they decided to call it a day in 2019 and how his solo project grew out of that. During our Autofiction track by track, Luke talks about trying to improve as a songwriter, inspiration and influences, returning to work as a doctor during Covi...

ØXN are Radie Peat, Katie Kim, John 'Spud' Murphy, and Ellie Myler, who have just released their debut album CYRM via Claddagh Records. A collection of six songs, there's old folk/trad tracks like 'Cruel Mother' and 'The Trees They Do Grow High', Katie Kim originals reworked, such as 'The Feast', and covers of Maija Sofia's 'The Wife of Michael Cleary' and Scott Walker's 'Farmer in the City'. On t...

Andy Connolly is the host body of Naive Ted, the DJ/producer/project/character/experience who is hanging up his mask with a final show at Haunted Dancehall at Dublin's NCH on November 4. Andy talks about Naive Ted's first appearances and development as well as his own journey, from helping launch the Community Skratch Games in Galway's Bierhaus to coming to Limerick, DJing and making music with th...

Galway singer-songwriter Reylta says she wanted her debut album Everything Unsaved Will Be Lost to feel like a Gaeltacht experience. So the recording was done in a remote cottage in Donegal which Seamus Heaney and fellow poets and creatives have frequented over the years. Producer Darragh Nolan uprooted his home studio from Gorey, Co Wexford, and brought it up to Donegal for the occasion, where a...

I Have a Tribe aka Patrick O'Laoighaire released his second album Changing of the Guard on October 6. A really lovely, warming album, it began in Berlin with producer Willi Sieger and was completed with full band in Dublin, with collaborators including Conor O'Brien. Per the press release, On Changing of the Guard, O’Laoghaire translates his everyday engagement with life into his music. At the cen...

Richie Egan aka Jape has just released his sixth studio album Endless Thread, via Faction Records. Egan produced and recorded the album at RARN studio using a unique collection of ribbon microphones, tape machines and tube outboard equipment. The album was mixed by David Odlum (Sam Smith, Lisa O’Neill) and mastered by Seán MacErlaine. The artwork was assembled by M&E Sweden. "I’ve been putting all...

Soda Blonde have just released their second album Dream Big. They say it’s a mantra – a mission statement from four lifelong friends. It’s their promise to themselves, and a message to all who come along for the ride: A reminder that life is precious, fragile, and fleeting, so we might as well dream big and hold nothing back. Here, Adam O'Regan and Faye O'Rourke talk about the first four or so yea...

Dublin four-piece Autre Monde (Paddy Hanna - vocals, Mark Chester - guitar, Padraig Cooney - bass, Eoghan O'Brien - drums) have just released their brilliant second album Sensitive Assignments. On this episode of the TPOE podcast, Padraig and Eoghan talk about creating the album in the studio with Gilla Band's Daniel Fox. We go through the record track by track and we also discuss the state of Pop...

A Litany of Failures is a compilation of Irish independent music that began with a four-track EP in 2016 and has grown into more than 20 songs for Volume IV, which has just been released. Put together by Danny Carroll, a solo artist in his own right, and Stevie Lennox, guitarist in Belfast's Junk Drawer, alongside Paul O'Connor (Licehead), it's a showcase of some of the wealth of talent spread acr...