May It Be

It would really be marvelous if I could find more time to blog. I'm not entirely pleased that this channel has been all but taken over by my weekly Mużika Mod Ieħor podcast. Not that I mind, either. It's just that I wish I had more time to blog about other things. If you look back at my blog before my podcasting series became a regular thing, you'll see that I'm not just longing for a better time that's no longer with us, but a renewed way to blog about things other than the Maltese music scene. Meanwhile it feels like there's no stopping this trajectory and so this blog entry deals entirely with episode 65 in the MMI series.

If you follow the Mużika Mod Ieħor podcast with any regularity you know that I like to string my selections together thematically, in some way or other. Finding a connection between the first two songs for this week is fairly because they've done it for me themselves. Surreal, the opening tune, comes from a UK-based band called Caligula, which is fronted by Maltese-born singer Glenda Azzopardi, better known as Gia. Her life partner, and father to their infant child, is Muttley. Misery is another song off his 2006 album Paid to Fail.

MySpace never fails me. It's my constant life-line to the Maltese music scene. To be honest I'm not sure whether my weekly podcasting series would have survived in its current form if it wasn't for the seemingly endless stream of new and old acts establishing their presence on this most popular Web 2.0 network.

Just a few days ago I was terribly pleased to discover that 80s electro-combo Joy Circuit are in discussions to reunite. Founding members Kevin O'Neill and Larski (a.k.a Mark Ellul, of Dejjem Tiegħek, Becky fame) have established their presence on MySpace and appear to be pushing towards bringing singer Jody Fiteni to the fray sooner or later. In case you're wondering where you've heard that name before, Jody's voice has already graced this series twice; with the Sky Giants and from a rare Mill-Garaxx recording with the Ophidian Twin.

In a previous blog entry I mentioned that during my recent visit to Malta I bumped into Melchior Sultana. We kept in touch after that and earlier this week he sent me a couple of recordings he made earlier this year. No More is one of them and it clearly shows him for the major force he is in electronic dance music on the local scene.

Keeping the music as varied as possible, I close with Tribali's Never Give Up to mark their appearance at the Earth Garden Festival in Ta' Qali this weekend. I also like the title of this track as a precursor to events in the upcoming week. Yes, it's Eurovision week again now and I'm off to Helsinki on Monday.

If you're (still) wondering why I bother with such pop drivel, please find comfort in the fact that this question is still on my mind. Still, I find more reasons to fly towards the flame as I get deeper and deeper into this multinational television phenomenon. Next week's podcast will be an attempt to peel off another couple of layers from this glass onion.

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.