Playin' The Outlaw

Now that I'm (almost) firmly back in Scarborough for the new academic year and I've also managed to finish the first full draft manuscript of my Franklin Furnace book I'm in a position to take stock of some other significant things in my life. Some of those meaningful aspects of my life are too personal to be of any interest to casual readers of my blog. Others include a realization that a staggering number of recordings by Maltese artists have been released in the first nine months of this year.

You may have already seen the list I've compiled. Once I'm convinced that my list doesn't overlook any important releases, my plan is to unleash a revised list for a voting public in a couple weeks. I'm not too keen on awards and other such baseless value judgments, but I am interested in getting a sense of the top 10 recordings from 2006 according to people who listen to my podcast over the last three months of the year.

This week's podcast opens with one of the titles on that list. Last June, Bitterside recorded three tracks at Farmhouse Studios, produced by Howard Keith. The song that most people will have heard is Shutters. I have chosen to play another one of these three tracks, Edge of Reason. Daniel Genuis' voice is hauntingly beautiful and it blends wonderfully with the sound produced by the rest of the band.

Last week I looked back at some loose ends from previous episodes of my podcast. I said that I'm thinking of doing a podcast like that once in a while. I now realize that that may not be a practical approach. In fact, this week I'm following up on something I mentioned in podcast number 19 when I played a track from Nicky Falzon's Masque album Twilight Moods. I met Nick Falzon again on MySpace just a few days ago. I'm overwhelmed by the staggering amount of albums he has produced over the last few years. They number about 70! There are samples from most, if not all, of them on his personal website. I've chosen to play the title track from his eight album in the series, entitled Chlorophyll Dream.

Moving on to another dream, I thought it was most appropriate to play Angel of My Dreams, the new single from Hellraiser, the new album by Krokus, which will be officially released in Malta and the rest of Europe on Monday, 18 September 2006. It was released in Germany and Switzerland on Friday, 15 September. More remarkable than the release of this new album from Krokus is their recently announced show in Malta for the 25th of November at the old power station in Floriana. This will be Marc Storace's first major live concert in his country of birth since that legendary show with Tea at the Plaza Cinema in Sliema way back in the mid-1970s.

Someone who has been active in the local music scene since long before that is Freddie Portelli. He has just finished recording his new 4-track EP at Padded Cell Studios with Robert Longo. This is his 13th CD release since his much appreciated comeback in the early 1990s. He was very kind to email me these new tracks earlier today. So as this week's final track on Mużika Mod Ieħor you can hear the song Good to Be Free. At the age of 62 he sounds as fresh as ever. Long live the king.

The RSS feed for the Mużika Mod Ieħor podcast is available here or you can simply click here to subscribe directly with iTunes. You can also add the latest episodes to your My Yahoo! page.