White Rabbit

I just finished watching the first part of the new BBC series The Seven Ages of Rock. Simply amazing. This series alone is worth the price of the TV license we pay every year here in the UK. It comes just one day after Patti Smith appeared on Later with Jools Holland and I now realize that I've been going through a gradual detox from the Eurovision Song Contest.

Raphael Vassallo's article in the midweek Malta Today (based in part on questions he asked me at the beginning of the week) is one of the better pieces of journalism I've read about the hazy dream I went through last week. Then again, the real turning point probably happened last Tuesday when I attended the transliteracy colloquium at DeMontfort University in Leicester.

A couple of days ago Freddie Portelli sent me a few MP3s of some new songs he recorded and I thought it would be a good idea to include one of them on this week's edition of Mużika Mod Ieħor. The one I've selected is called Hangin' On and it reminded me to check out what Galea is up to. She recently released a cover of a song called Sally Go Round the Roses originally recorded by the Jaynetts in the sixties. Popa Chubby's guitar arrangement for this song gives it a whole new life but it is Galea's singing that makes it worth playing on my podcast.

For the next track on this week's podcast I decided to stay in the USA and play a track called simply Għana tal-Fatt from L-Amerikan whose real name is Jason Muscat. He is a Maltese-American electronic music producer based in San Francisco and his work is an attempt to mix elements of traditional Maltese folk music (għana) with modern electronic and dance music. In an email he sent me a few day ago he told me that he is seeking to collaborate with Maltese artists and incorporate their work into new original compositions. This track is a remix of an original fatt sung by the Maltese folk singer Vincent Carabott "il-Bukku" accompanied by guitarist Charlie Muscat "il-Paletti", which was originally recorded by Paletti at his Creative Studios in Zabbar in 2004.

To round up this week's edition of Mużika Mod Ieħor I picked a track from a project called Prayer of the Dying, which is driven by Martin Ciappara. About a month ago, his debut CD Structures of a Dying Matter was released by War Flagellation Productions. Interestingly it was also released on tape. The track you can hear on my podcast is called Witches Sabbath but I have a feeling its supposed to be called Witch's Sabbath or Witchs' Sabbath. In any case, I'm sure fans of Black Metal will appreciate it whatever it's actually called.

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