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Saturday, September 26, 2009

Haven’t Met You Yet

I seem to be involved in more new web development projects than I actually have time for right now. Thankfully, some of the people I'm collaborating with know what they're doing, so I have good reasons to believe that it'll all start coming together very soon. This is not to say that I'm not (always!) looking for new collaborators. Quite the opposite, actually.

One of these web development projects involves the Mużika Mod Ieħor poll Facebook app developed by James Attard in 2007. We're now looking to migrate the app to a more permanent server, update it to take advantage of the recent changes in the Facebook API, and look at ways to make it an overall better experience for the Facebook users who choose to install it. If you're interested in getting involved on this app with us just contact me.

Meanwhile I've just released the preliminary list of nominations for the 2009 MMI Listeners' Picks poll. I'll be considering further releases until the last week of November. Please let me know if there's anything you think should be on that list but isn't there.

The 181st Mużika Mod Ieħor podcast sees newcomers Droned return to the playlist with a song called Love To Let. This young band sounds very tight and to my ears they have an incredible asset in the voice of singer Tommy Vassallo. Even if this band morphs into something else in the coming months - and I hope not! - Tommy will hopefully be around performing as a singer for many years to come.

A few days ago I received a copy of the second CD album released by guitarist Demis. The follow-up to 2007's Ethereal Travel is called Senspiration: From The Senses to The Soul. I've already nominated it in the Top Album category for the 2009 MMI Listener's Picks' poll. This new album is packed with more of the guitar pyrotechnics found on Demis' debut album. Among the flood of semiquavers and demisemiquavers I was delighted to find a song called Alien, featuring guest singer Carrie Haber. That's the track I've selected to include on this week's podcast. I'm now also looking forward to hearing Six.Point.Circle, the band that Demis is now playing with aside from his guitar solo project.

Listening to Marlene Galea's excellent interview with No Bling Show's Jon Mallia last week I realized that a small, but very significant, number of Maltese musicians are bringing the language issue to the fore after years decades festering beneath the surface. In what appears like an effort to democratize their playlist Bay Radio has unleashed an online music repository called Bay Bands. It is through this new online service that I discovered an outstanding song called Jien M'Jien Xej by a duo called M.A.M. Guitarist Miguel Vassallo is heard distinctively on this track, but unfortunately I know very little about M.A.M. because the Bay Bands service doesn't seem to be doing much more than offering musicians (and anyone else) the opportunity to upload material they'd like to hear on the radio but probably never will.

In the fifteen year that they've been around, Rage Against Society have never cared about such things, even if they've regaled us with one of the best loved Maltese punk songs outside the Xtruppaw canon, notoriously championed by the author Ġuzé Stagno. R.A.S. have now released a CD album called 15 Years of Kaos, containing some of the best English-language songs. Punk Is Not A Fashion sounds like a Motorhead tribute but packs a great punch in its lyrics. Given Ray il-Baħri's involvement in various other bands, I'm glad to see that R.A.S. are also gigging quite regularly. They're appearing at Rookies tonight and at Remedy on the 24th of October.

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 or on MySpace. If you have no idea what any of this means, just click here or listen to the podcast on the player right below this text.

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