Finding My Way

As expected, this past week has left me physically and mentally exhausted. My wife and I had hoped to celebrate our wedding anniversary by going to a nice restaurant on Friday evening but we were both simply too worn out to even think about making a reservation. We'll have to leave it for another day...probably Monday.

Meanwhile, the first week of the academic year went quite smoothly, even if it was jam packed with activities for both new and returning students. I particularly enjoyed lunch with the postgraduate students on Friday. What a civilized way to start a postgraduate degree! The fish & chips at the university canteen was even better than it has ever been in recent memory. It was surprisingly very non-salty and I guess that's what made it most appealing to me. The average fish & chips punter would probably find this dull or simply drown the meal in salt and vinegar.

To make me remember that a new academic year doesn't mean that everything else just goes away or changes, I made sure to relish the time I spend every weekend producing my Mużika Mod Ieħor podcast. This week's edition adds four more tracks to the list of nominations toward the 2008 Listeners' Picks.

The first selection continues in the same vein I explored recently with Maltese rock bands fronted by female singers. Jeanelle and Uncharted provide an alternative sound that is quite refreshing on the local rock scene. You can hear their new song The Dream on my podcast and, if you're in Malta next weekend, you can catch them live at the Poxx Bar on October 11, along with Airport Impressions.

I normally avoid featuring the same act twice on my podcast within a short period of time. This is not a hard and fast rule, of course, but I gladly bring The Myth back to my podcast playlist as they have released a new single called How Does It Feel. This is a very welcome follow-up to Star as it shows that the band can do more than produce a song that sounds like an Oasis out-take. This new song is so much better that I've decided to replace Star with it on my list of nominations for the upcoming 2008 Listeners' Picks. I have a feeling that this band, which has been around for almost two decades, is still on a journey towards finding its own voice and when they do we may very well be hearing some remarkable new tracks from them.

I've also previously featured the Maltese-Australian singer-songwriter Renee Cassar on my podcast. She is on a very similar path to the one I just described for The Myth, even if she's come quite some way in a very short span of time. Although she has released several original songs through her MySpace page, apparently she still hasn't released an album yet. It would seem that she's aiming to rectify this by taking part in the MySpace Road Tour.

These new social networking sites have become such an essential element of the music that, like many other music fans around the world, I turn to them regularly to keep in touch with what's going on. This week through Facebook I discovered that Toby and Kristina Casolani have just written and recorded the theme song for the new Maltese TV series Traceland called Traces. It's good to have these two on the list of nominations for the 2008 Listeners' Picks.

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