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Show notes for the 347th Mużika Mod Ieħor podcast featuring music by performers from or in Malta:

The Rifffs – Start the Revolution
It looks like the long awaited second album from Malta’s longest serving ska band is coming together nicely. This new song is one that’s among those recorded for the follow-up to Moonstomp, which only materialized 30 years after the band originally came together. I’m pretty sure that this second album is only months (hopefully not years) away.

Melbourne Ska Orchestra – The Diplomat
Since this week’s MMI podcast features two other ska songs, I though it would be most appropriate to include the new single from the Nicky Bomba’s Melbourne Ska Orchestra. This band has appeared in this series a number of times before, but I really like this track because its title gives me the opportunity to wish three people I’ve known for many years all the very best on their appointment to the diplomatic offices in Paris, London, and Brussels: that’s Vince Camilleri, Norman Hamilton, and Ray Azzopardi.

nosnow/noalps – Cherry Tree
This band stands out as one of the few in Malta who have recognized how to make the best of the tracks on the albums they release. Far too many times, excellent album tracks are lost on the die-hard fans who care enough to acquire the full album and listen to it more than once. Releasing a promotional video is certainly one way to draw attention to track after track from any particular album. This works well for nosnow/noalps.

Brikkuni – Ċikku ċ-Ċinkwina
I was slightly taken aback by the fact that the video for this song is billed as “unofficial” even though it features an appearance by the band, which looks rather official. I’m not sure what any of this really means, but then again this is Brikkuni, whose front man is a stickler for detail and fine points. He is also very outspoken, sometime with noticeable effect, such as the current debacle with the MCCA and the administrators of the new open-air theatre on the site of the Royal Opera House ruins in Valletta, who are demanding a €2,000 rental fee for the band to give a concert there. Vella and Brikkuni have withdrawn their plans to stage their gig there and in the process raised a broader dialogue of cultural management in Malta and the wider concerns relating to the financial value (and I don’t mean worth here) of artists and entertainers.

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. An archive of MMI podcast is also available on Mixcloud. If you have no idea what any of this means, just enjoy listening to the podcast on the player right below this text.

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Show notes for the 346th Mużika Mod Ieħor podcast featuring music by performers from or in Malta:

Melchior Sultana – Summer
I’ve been a fan of Melchior Sultana’s music for a very long time. He is virtually unknown and this is a great shame, according to me. He has managed to attract some attention from music aficionados but not enough to make him anything close to a household name, even among the casual hanger-ons of the Malta music scene. To put it another way, I doubt you’ll be seeing him live at the beer festival in Ta’ Qali anytime soon.

Tricia Dawn Williams – Constellations II
It not often that you hear contemporary classical music on the MMI podcast. Whenever you do, you can be sure of two things: (a) there’s a Maltese connection, and (b) it’s good music. Here pianist Tricia Dawn Williams plays the second movement of one of Ruben Zahra many compositions. If you’d like to catch them both live in a very different sort of vein, you should head to Żejtun tomorrow evening for the Evenings on Campus (yes, I know that it’s not really on campus!) event entitled Kuntrasti, starting at 9pm.

Yews – Let’s Not Talk About It
Yasmin Kuymizakis has featured on previous editions of this podcast. I like her quirky songs but they’re not everyone’s cup of tea. In some ways you could say that this sort of minimal pop is an acquired taste. In other ways you couldn’t really describe this music as pop. Anyway, have a look at the video for this song, which actually came to my attention recent, even though it’s been out a few months, due to the fact that Yews has released an alternative version of it recorded live in a park, presumably in London.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zUtsVuMsX9U

Elder Water – Reasonable Distance
I’ve been wanting to play something by this progressive Maltese rock band for some time but for one reason or another never managed to get around to it. They’ve now released a song featuring British guest singer Joe Cairney from the band Comedy of Errors. It should certainly receive more airtime than it will on Maltese alternative music radio hsoted presented by the likes of Michael Bugeja, Lito Micallef and Noel Mifsud.

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 enjoy listening to the podcast on the player right below this text.

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Show notes for the 345th Mużika Mod Ieħor podcast featuring music by performers from or in Malta:

Xtruppaw – Il-Biskuttel
In case you missed it: Xtruppaw have launched their long-awaited second album a few weeks ago. Xtruppożitorju has been well-received by old and new fans alike, particularly those lucky enough to catch the band live at the launch concert or during their show at this year’s beer festival at Ta’ Qali. This song is one I know I’d be playing every single morning every day for some time to come, had I still been presenting a radio breakfast show, as I did for about three years more than 20 years ago.

Joe Roscoe – Side By Side
This new song from Joe Roscoe is rhythmically reminiscent of Xturppaw’s Ġenerażżjoni ta’ Meqrudin…but that’s where the similarities end. As you can see for yourselves from the promotional video below, this song is a very worthy follow up to Roscoe’s debut from a few months ago. I’m sure this will be picked up by a number of local radio stations, but I genuinely believe that he deserves to be heard even more broadly than that.

Lauren Aquilina – Sinners
Teenage sensation Lauren Aquilina is among the most social media savvy recording artists I’ve ever come across. It is therefore quite fitting that this song has been picked as the Single of the Week on iTunes in the UK. The eponymous EP, her second after the debut Fools from last year, is also doing well on iTunes in Malta, where it’s at the top of the download chart, ahead of her appearance at the same beer festival I mentioned earlier in relation to Xtruppaw.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=knzu1g-S0fI

Mauro Kitcher feat. Angie – Whiskey Lullaby
Regular listeners of the MMI podcast know that I normally shy away from cover versions. There are some notable exception to this, of course. This country song was fairly popular when it was first recording by Brad Paisley and Alison Krauss in 2004. I don’t think I’ve every played anything from Mauro Kitcher on a previous edition of the MMI podcast, but his collaboration with Angie was a must play for me. The main reason for this is that aside from having a truly wonderful voice, Angie is also an old personal friend; back in the 1980s she supported Artwork, the pop rock band I played with, as hair stylist. I’d love to hear her record more songs. Her beautify voice is something I’d dare say she’s inherited from her mother, who was a well-known pop singer in the 1960s.

Voodoo Gurus – Bei Mir Bistu Shein
To Me You’re Beautiful is the rough translation of the old Yiddish song title from the musical I Would If I Could. Many well known recording artists have included this song in their repertoire since the 1930s, so it’s quite a pleasure to see this Gozo-based band record it too. You can probably catch them at one of their gigs at Żeppi’s Bar in Qala or somewhere else in Gozo. Sarah Hague’s voice pulls the band together beautifully but the band is quite tight and performs all the songs they play with relish and gusto.

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 enjoy listening to the podcast on the player right below this text.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 21:00 — 19.3MB) | Embed

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