Seeds of Love

I actually don't have a lot to say about my podcast this week. This is mostly because I'm quite tired this weekend and I've got other things on my mind. It's been a long and exhausting first week of the academic year. It was a good induction experience this year and I must say that I'm pleased with the way the new School of Arts and New Media has set out on its first year.

Anyway, on to this week's podcast, which I decided should fully comprise of artists who have already appeared in the series before. This is actually a first for the Mużika Mod Ieħor series.

The opening salvo comes from Fire's recently released debut CD ...Ignite, which I found full of pleasant classic rock moments. If you like solid Americana rock from the 70s and 80s this album is a must have for you. Just listen to the opening track, Get Out of My Way, and I'm sure it will conjure up the best memories you have from listening to Foreigner, Blue Oyster Cult, Van Halen and a bunch of bands of their ilk.

Fire is blessed with not one but two great Maltese rock guitarists. We heard music from one of them (Pejxa) during last week's podcast. This week I have the pleasure of bringing you a previously unreleased recording from Fire's other axeman and producer Robert Longo. Anyone who knows him only through Fire may be surprised to hear him experimenting with dance electronica on this recording called Is Anybody Out There? from about 1993.

The music of Particle Blue is undoubtedly among the best current electronica from Malta. Along with Fire, their release from 2006 is featured in my list of nominations for top music issued this year, which I'll be opening up for public voting in the coming weeks. So, watch this space. Meanwhile you can enjoy a very interesting track from Particle Blue called Intervall ta' Imħabba, which marks the departure of the wonderful Claire Tonna from the band.

Keeping it electronica, I thought it would be appropriate to close this week's podcast with the music of Chemical Orphan. This is the new name adopted by Glen Cachia who, like all the other acts of this week's podcast, was already featured on another edition of Mużika Mod Ieħor. The song Bad Girl is described by Glen himself as "sort of Iggy Pop goes disco."

Did I say I had very little to say about this weeks podcast? And have you noticed that I haven't mentioned MySpace this week. So I'll keep it that way. Plenty of that in previous weeks and in the months to come, no doubt. What I will mention is that I'm very proud of myself because I've managed to sprout a bunch of new basil plants out of seeds from a previous plant I bought for about 10p from Tesco last year. Perhaps I'll post a picture of my little baby in the coming days.

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