Love's Dream

I'm in Hungary this weekend attending a conference on youth culture and new media in faith-driven communities under the InYgo banner. I was actually invited to give a keynote address at the start of the conference in Dobogokö yesterday and stayed on to follow the rest of the proceedings and sample what Budapest has to offer on a Saturday afternoon/evening. You can't really get the feel for a place in just one afternoon/evening of course, so perhaps I'll have to come back for some more Hungarian delights some other time. This is a country that has been indirectly ever-present in my life since 1994 for one reason or another.

Before coming to Hungary, I prepared this week's Mużika Mod Ieħor podcast to ensure that I've included as much of the Maltese music released in 2009 as possible on the series before MMI listeners vote for their top picks of the year. This week's edition is packed with material that will be added to the list of nominations for the 2009 MMI Listener's Picks poll, which will go live on Facebook before the end of this month.

Nosnow/noalps recently played a live gig in Linz, Austria, with Red Electrick and Ira Losco. Since they apparently haven't made any new studio recordings since October 2007, they've released a fourth single from their Just Rock EP. Dance All Over You foregrounds Sarah Falzon on vocals making for a different sounding song from this band.

Daniel Cassar is the name of another member of nosnow/noalps, but he's not the one by that name who provides the second track on the 187th MMI podcast. This Daniel Cassar plays guitar with Cyanide and Soundscape Foundation. He has already appeared on a previous edition of the MMI podcast and today he returns with another guitar instrumental. This one's called In the Loop and to my ears is quite reminiscent of The Duritti Column sound produced by Vini Reilly.

Two new EPs released from the Maltese underground electronica scene provide the next two offerings on this week's podcast. The first come's from DJ Lord Vampirick's debut EP entitled Straight Shot To the Edge of the Universe. To commemorate the first 40th anniversary of the Apollo moon landing I've picked the oddly titled It Happened 1040.00 Year Ago. The other EP is the 39th offering from Pinkpube, so immediately after DLV's number you can hear the title track from Nothing Less From the West by Noize Duqt, which was officially released on the 22nd of October 2009.

From time to time, often quite frequently, my MySpace and Facebook pages are visited by Vince Bongailas who leaves me cryptic breadcrumbs about some new recording or other he's doing. Most recently he's been telling me about his upcoming new album and just a couple of days ago he posted a link to a new collaboration he did on a YouTube video. Recording under the name Ailas I particularly liked his song Kulħadd Għandu l-Art Tiegħu, which he recently released through his MySpace page. I'm not sure if this will be on his new album but I personally think this is one of his more interesting works...and it's the one I'm nominating for the 2009 MMI Listeners' Picks poll.

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