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Show notes for the 353rd Mużika Mod Ieħor podcast featuring music by performers from or in Malta:

Re-né feat. Chess – Perfect Love
Francesca Galea, better known as Chess, has one of the more pleasant voices to emerge from the Maltese music scene in recent years. She is also a seeker, searching for her own way rather than being dragged down into the way things are done in Malta. It is delightful to hear her on this dance track by Re-né and a joy to have the opportunity to share her voice with my podcast listeners once again.

Jane Doe – GoldRush
Another of those beautiful voices that have emerged from Malta in recent years belongs to Margherita Bonello. I said as much when I first heard this band for the first time a couple of years ago, and again when they released a follow-up track to their debut. Now they’re on the verge of releasing their debut album. This is the single issued just ahead of the album along with a promotional video.

Bark Bark Disco – Something We Can Laugh About
The third EP from Bark Bark Disco contains four tracks. I don’t really have much to say about this all except that I really like the simplicity of these new songs. They grow on you quickly and the lyrics go a long way to draw your attention to this material’s interesting quirky qualities.

The Suburbanite – A Mermaid’s Tale
Robert Pisani returns with a second EP following last year’s A Field Guide to The Suburbanite. This one has a really good title – H2 Oh No! – but I think I like the songs on the first one considerably more than I like the ones on this new one. It’s mostly a matter of personal preference. In any case, I’m really pleased that one of the songs from the first EP has also had a video made for it. I played Monsters on a previous edition of MMI and it’s really well worth repeat listening, especially now that we can also enjoy it while watching this video by Barbara Stramska.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nksD4Y-JlJc

The Madhatters – My Remedy
A new band with a debut song closes this week’s podcast. It’s not a bad first outing and I’m fairly sure that this band will be moving away from the sound they’ve managed to capture at Lito’s Place for this premier release. I mean, this song is as good as it probably gets for them. I could be wrong, of course, and they could become great innovators – then again, that’s probably not what they set out to do anyway. Meanwhile, I should probably simply enjoy this song for what it is.

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 352nd Mużika Mod Ieħor podcast featuring music by performers from or in Malta:

The Velts – Jealous
An energetic new band on the local alternative rock scene. The singer is called Sean Borg but that’s not the same Sean Borg that’s already made a name for himself on TV; who also happens to be my cousin’s son. I really like the driving sound this band has on this debut release and I’m really looking forward to more from them.

Chris & Moira – Vampires
Second single from the album Flight 170 released earlier this year. This one has a promotional video too, which you can obviously watch right here. It’s not as odd a song title as I thought at first. The lyrics make sense and show that they’re written by someone who has been around for quite some time. My favourite thing about this video is watching bassist Billy B prance around seemingly uncomfortably when he’s (most probably) enjoying every second of it.

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

The New Victorians – Somebody To Love
Sisters Bettina and Philippa Cassar came to my attention through the grant they received from the President’s Award for Creativity. I’m not particularly keen on playing covers on this podcast, but from time to time there’s a rather unusual take on a particular song or an extra effort to push through one’s own identity and I make an exception. In this case, both aspects can be found in this young duo’s acoustic rendition of the Queen classic. I’m very much looking forward to hearing their original stuff next.

Fastidju – Il-Gratitudni tas-Sabiħ
Nigel Baldacchino has been attracting attention to himself as Fastidju this summer. I must say that I like what little I’ve heard and I’d really like to hear more. Have a listen for yourself and see what you think. It’s rather unusual for Maltese creatives to dare present this sort of work and so to my mind this tends to stand out more than it would if it were more common.

Robert Farrugia – Mist
The wide range of electronic music from Malta is one thing that I’ve really come to appreciate greatly since I started producing this podcast back in 2005. Robert Farrugia has just released an EP called Mist. I’m not sure it’s everyone’s cup of of chill-out but I never tire of listening to this type of music, especially when I need to rest my brain.

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.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 20:20 — 18.7MB) | Embed

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Show notes for the 351st Mużika Mod Ieħor podcast featuring music by performers from or in Malta:

Karma Skies – Bittersweet September

Chris Tanti & Cheryl Balzan – Room Full of Tears

Scarlet Sally – I Don’t Get It

Sophie DeBattista – Lil’ Game
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zhX7Vq29dc

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.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 18:19 — 16.9MB) | Embed

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Show notes for the 350th Mużika Mod Ieħor podcast featuring music by performers from or in Malta:

No Bling Show – Żulu Minn Nofs
What a great way to mark Independence Day! No Bling Show will be giving a live concert at the Old Malta Prisons in Corradino on Saturday 21 September. Without any shadow of a doubt, it will be a great gig. As it’s unlikely that I will release another podcast before the show, I wanted to start this week’s edition with this track of their 2013 album Ċar Kristall. As far as new Maltese music goes, it really doesn’t get better than this.

KulTural – Priscilla
The Saturday before Independence Day, KulTural will be appearing in Madliena with Mistura. I’m very fond of the eclectic sounds that this band brings together. Their Madliena gig on Saturday 14 September is an interesting alternative to the pop rock entertainment provided by Rockestra that same evening and certainly more appealing to the likes of me. I’m sure they’ll play this one as they’ve released it just a few days ago to promote the show.

Negative Spaces – State of Mind
This is the first of three video releases I’ve included on this week’s podcast. Produced by Niki Gravino, these young hopefuls return with yet another blast of catchy retro pop. I must admit that while this song is not half bad, I did expect something even better from this band. Perhaps they’re saving that for their next release.

Dry Connections – Reach Out
Wasn’t this one of the more promising newcomer bands of 2012? They’ve certainly returned with a strong follow-up. While they blind sided me with their debut, this time they’ve more than grabbed my attention with this song. The video is also quite appropriate for the song. This could be it for them. I wonder what they’ll do if it just fizzles away like so many other releases by similar bands from Malta.

Andi – We Can Try
I was recently speaking with my colleague Marlene Galea at SBS Radio in Melbourne about the fact that there’s a Maltese dancer called Cassandra Galea. Cassandra is her birth name, so she was clearly intrigued by this. I was therefore very pleasantly surprised when I saw Cassandra the dance in this video from this new singer-songwriter. Andrea Attard has picked Andi as her stage name. Her debut is produced by Peter Borg and features this video by Keith Falzon.

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.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 19:39 — 18.1MB) | Embed

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