Never Before

Ever since I started this blog way back in April 2004 I made it a point to post something at least once a week. I had never broken that promise, until last week. As you may have gathered from my previous two posts, I was on a two week visit to Malta. Unlike all other visits since April 2004, I didn't feel compelled to blog much about anything. I did post two entries while in Malta, both announcing podcasts, of course, but perhaps because I also took a break from producing new podcasts over the last couple of weeks I also ended up taking longer to blog than I had ever done before.

I have a feeling that the fact that I'm quite active on Facebook and Twitter had something to do with this brief blogging hiatus too. As satisfying as social networking and microblogging can be, I don't think I can easily give up blogging and podcasting any time soon, as long as I can find the few hours per week required to maintain my blog and podcasts.

So, the Mużika Mod Ieħor series returns this week with the 158th podcast. New material keeps flooding in, so it's inevitable that all the tracks I've selected for this week's podcast come from the steady flow of new releases. The first of these is a demo by The Does who follow-up last year's first single with a follow-up (demo) called My Better Side.

As much as I appreciate bands who produce well made music, I'm rarely as impressed as I am whenever someone decides to give their music a particularly Maltese twist in one way or another. The upcoming album Stejjer Tal-Bandli by No Bling Show is an excellent example of this. While others have already (successfully) attempted rap and hop-hop in Maltese, Jon Mallia and his collaborators have elevated the form to a new level. Rather than play tracks of the actual album, which is set to be released on the 3rd of May, I've decided to share a related YouTube video featuring Jon with guitarist Phil Zammit and percussionist Michael Galea jamming on one of the tunes from the album called Lucija u Samuel (l-ewwel parti). More on all this once the album has been released.

If you follow this podcast and/or blog regularly, you may recall that I introduced the work of Karl Baldacchino, who records as Synthact. Pinkpube have now released Synthact's debut EP entitled Aer as a free download. I like the minimalist arrangement on a track called Oligarchy, and you can hear it half way through this week's podcast.

During my recent visit to Malta I had the great pleasure of meeting Malcolm Galea, who has managed to make a name for himself on the local entertainment scene over the last decade or so. When we met up he told me all about the interesting work that has gone into the creation of Porn: The Musical and the current plans to develop the work further beyond the confines of the Maltese islands. As musical theatre goes, this work seems to me to be on par with many other works I've come across in recent years, so I'll be surprised if Malcolm and his company (including musicians Kris Spiteri and Boris Cezek) don't manage to get Porn noticed beyond the rock. You can get a sense of the quality of this musical by listening to the song Naked on a Sunday featuring the voices of Max Dingli and David Ellul.

To close of this week's podcast I've picked Thea Saliba's new single, entitled On The Dancefloor. This former Eurovision startlet has done relatively well for herself over the last couple of years and I'm quite impressed by the fact that she has chosen to move on from the Eurovision scene without actually completely turning her back on it. While her song choices aren't always to my personal taste, I have a feeling we'll be hearing much more from her in the coming years.

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 follow each new episode through the MMI Podcast: Facebook Fan Page. If you have no idea what any of this means, just click here.