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Sunday, March 29, 2009

Walk the Line

I'm now in Malta. Another brief visit for the usual reasons. I'm sure I'll find time to blog a little about that from time to time over the next couple of weeks, so there's no real need to say much else just yet about any of that.

I wanted to make sure to produce the 157th Mużika Mod Ieħor podcast earlier this week to release during the weekend. All went well except that I got caught up in cleaning the almost crippled laptop I'll be working on over the next couple of weeks and then forgot what day it was as I prepared to attend a wedding.

This week's podcast opens with Sky Mines, the debut release from a new band called Droned. Next up is Muxu's follow-up to last years smash hit Beat My Drum. The new single is called Drop It (Say No No No). These two tracks epitomize the solid state of Malta's alternative pop scene.

Moving swiftly on, the rest of this week's podcast dwells on more Maltese electronica. Christopher Buhagiar and Karl Baldacchino team up to record as Corrupted Minds. From the various tracks they're released via MySpace, I've selected Why Be Normal. The sound of this electronica duo prepares your ears well for the unusual aural soundscapes of Mark Axiaq. This Maltese guitarist has Australian and Norgwegian connections. I'll be exploring these in an upcoming edition of the MMI podcast, but for today you can get acquainted with him through the track Sleeplessness.

I am now planning a two-week break from producing new episodes for the Mużika Mod Ieħor series. However, during this brief hiatus I'm planning to re-release several podcasts from the MMI archive. I will be revealing more about this in the coming days.

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.

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Saturday, March 21, 2009

No More Heroes

The expression "jumped the shark" means absolutely nothing to most people who are not American and even less to anyone who is not a Happy Days fan. In our household we have one of each, so "jumped the shark" features in conversations from time to time. It popped up this week as a definite reaction to the hitherto brilliant TV series Heroes.

It certainly feels like MySpace may have jumped the shark, but I'm not too sure about that: thanks to all you sent me their views on this following my request for comments over the last couple of weeks.

Sharks and jumping are things I hope my weekly Mużika Mod Ieħor is very far away from being associated with simultaneously. I have a trick up my sleeve to ensure this. More about that next week. Until then, I'm pretty confident that the contents of this week's MMI podcast will please most of my regular listeners.

Carrie Haber has just released her debut EP, It's Complex. From it I picked Those 3 Words to open this week's podcast. It's followed by a track from another new release. Violinist Simon Vella - who has appeared on previous editions of the MMI podcast with Sixth Simphoni - will be launching a CD album called Unspoken: Sounds from Within with two gigs at St James Cavalier on 4 and 5 April. The name of the tune I've chosen to include in this week's podcast is called Whatever. As I'll be in Malta during the first week of April, I'm looking forward to attending one of these two gigs in Valletta. It's always good to see a classically trained musician dare to be different.

Following up from last week's inclusion of music by Mario Sammut, where I lamented of his disappearance from MySpace, I'm happy to report that this young Maltese musician is still as prolific as ever under a new stage name: Cygna. I've liked Mario's music from the first day I heard it, so I'll take any excuse to play something else from him on my podcast. This week you can hear one of Cygna's exotically named tracks called Kuintaar. I still haven't met anyone who doesn't like this type of music.

To prove that MySpace is possibly still as alive and kicking as ever, Kurt Chircop contacted me via my page on that network to tell me about his new recordings. He is better known as l urk and the track I've chosen from him to close this week's podcast is called didj.

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.

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Saturday, March 14, 2009

It's Alright

I'm still thinking about whether MySpace has lost the allure it greatly enjoyed over the last couple of years. Following last week's initial thoughts, this week's Mużika Mod Ieħor podcast addresses this issue directly. I'm now asking my podcast listeners, blog readers, and MySpace users at large to chime in with your point of view on all this. To put things into a broader perspective, this comes along the eye-watering rise of Facebook, and the resurgence of Twitter as an alternative social networking utility.

To open the 155th MMI podcast I chose to dip back to Pinkpube's first release for 2009: Tumult & Squawk. There are several good tracks in this compilation album and this time I've picked Hadrian Mansueto's Un Run. If you'd like to sample what the Maltese electronica scene has to offer you should really download Tumult & Squawk from the Pinkpube website; it's a free download.

In trawling MySpace for new material to play on my weekly podcast, I discovered that Mario Sammut's page has disappeared from that network. I haven't contacted him to ask why, yet. Perhaps this is because through the relaunched Earth Garden website, I discovered that he is still quite active. The new Earth Garden site has a soundtrack provided by Mario Sammut and you can also hear it as the second selection on week's podcast.

I'm not sure that MySpace has lost it's original popularity. I say this because I continue to discover new Maltese acts (or musicians with a strong Malta connection) through it quite regularly. The remaining tracks on this week's podcast are precisely examples of this sort of thing.

Macropode and Clement are two electronica names that I had never seen before this year. Macropode's style is quite minimalist and experimental while Clement tends to be quite industrial and hardcore techno. The tracks I've selected are called Convengence and 909 Invasion respectively. On a purely geeky note I'd like to point out that Clement's tracks look like a stunning spirograph creation as wave files in the Audacity GUI, which I use to produce all my podcasts.

To bring the 155th MMI podcast to a close I've picked a track called Mersychippi Blues by a defunct Liverpool duo called Mekon Delta. They have performed in Malta, at the Plum Tree Pub in Qawra and you hear (and see) part of that gig on their MySpace page. Ron Cheevers has been living in Malta for the last couple of years or so. When I contacted him recently to ask about his connection with Malta, he told me that moved there after years of cherishing his father's WWII stories. You can probably still catch him at one of his solo gigs in Qawra. If you want to make his day, just ask him to play you some delta blues.

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.

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Saturday, March 07, 2009

Shining Light

This afternoon I read an interesting article about the declining popularity of MySpace. It appears that MySpace is loosing out to Facebook. From my own perspective, the two networks serve a very different purpose. I've always seen MySpace as a music network, even if it has always been used for other types of social networking too. At the same time, Facebook has now gone beyond critical mass in terms of its utility as a social network based mostly on "friendship". I've rediscovered Twitter as a more rewarding environment for my personal social networking.

After reading the article about MySpace I wonder if the many Maltese singers and musicians who use MySpace to disseminate their music feel that this popular network has lost the allure it had just a couple of years ago. If you use MySpace please contact me and let me know. I ask this mostly because MySpace remains a prominent source discovery of new materials for my weekly Mużika Mod Ieħor podcast.

I need feedback on MySpace use also because only one track on this week's podcast comes directly from MySpace. The first track is from NV's CD album Envy, which was released on 28 February at the Poxx Bar in Paceville. The album features the seven singles NV released over the last three years along with a couple of new songs. Fountain of Life is one of these previously unheard tracks and it opens the 154th MMI podcast.

Sylvan Borg returns with a new song called Mouse by Day (Hero by Night). I'm always more than happy to include material from this underrated singer-songwriter. He is not a mainstream musician and this is probably why most Maltese radio stations don't include his stuff on their playlists the way they do with many other pop rock local acts. I would argue that Sylvan Borg's music is an acquired taste, which no connoisseur of the alternative Maltese music scene can ignore.

Earlier I mentioned that only one track on this week's podcast comes from MySpace. I was referring to Joe Mizzi's The Zero Chain 2009, which is possibly a remix or a new arrangement of the title track from his 2007 album by the same name. I'm not sure about this since I've never laid my hands on the said album. Note to self: get in touch with Joe Mizzi and make sure his entire discography is a matter of common knowledge for future MMI podcasts.

Although not particularly music-friendly, Facebook has become another excellent source for new music to include on my weekly podcast. It was through Facebook that I heard of the band ReBorn. I was then directed to their MySpace page, where I heard three songs they've uploaded there. Chew Me Plasticine is the one I like best out of these tracks, so I've picked it as the closing selection for this week's podcast.

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.

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