Waiting on the World to Change

We're in the middle of moving house this weekend so I had to prepare my podcast earlier. We're still staying in Scarborough, of course, so there's nothing much to blog about regarding the move itself.

As expected by my regular readers/listeners, this blog entry is meant mostly to accompany this week's podcast, which is number 52 in the Mużika Mod Ieħor series. It's an eclectic mix of old, new, known and unknown material. It should also serve as an excellent contrast to next week's podcast, which will be about the Malta Song for Europe.

This weekend the Beangrowers are in Ireland, playing four gigs before the London launch of their new single from their album Dance Dance Baby, I Like You, on Tuesday 30 January. The Beanies never fail to impress me with their touring successes and their Oxford Street single launch at the Metro is quite something for a Maltese band. If that's not enough, I'm certainly mighty pleased that they're now also working on their fourth album.

A few weeks ago I played a track by guitarist Demis Fenech. I also mentioned that he played with a band called Sidereal. Demis is an excellent guitarist and you can hear this clearly on his solo tracks, but you can really appreciate his brilliance when he plays with a live band. On this week's podcast you can hear Sidereal's live recording of their song Born Again.

From time to time I delve back in time and space away from what falls on my computer desktop and search for new and/or unusual material to include on my podcast. Recently I came across Dave Goodman's website, which includes some tracks by Mandala Malta, one of the last projects he was involved in before his sad and early death. Maltese lovers of so-called world music probably know that before Tribali's stellar debut last year, Mandala was the best (if not only) exponent of this type of music. For clear but necessarily obvious reasons, I chose to play Toni Tagħna from Mandala Malta's 2003 album Music From A Lighthouse.

Some time ago I used the word extreme to describe a recording by Brikkuni. In a comment on this blog, 'Ereżija' thought I meant that Brikkuni's music was extreme, and I although I clarified what my point I kept thinking I should play something that is truly extreme. Dark, ambient, and industrial are all perfectly valid terms to describe the music of Sky of Yuggoth. This is another project by Joseph Mercieca, who previously appeared on Mużika Mod Ieħor with more Ethnic Percussive Psy-Trance under the guise of MJ.5. The track I've selected is called Transmissions and you can hear the whole thing and more through his MySpace site.

I think that this is a rather wonderful place to leave the podcast before next week's Malta Song for Europe. The contrast is even more extreme than anything I could pick to scratch the itch I just mentioned.

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