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Show notes for the 317th Mużika Mod Ieħor podcast featuring music by performers from or in Malta:

Cruz – Good On You
A new funky song from one of the more high-profile Maltese pop rock bands of recent year. On first listen I thought this was a song that Ira Losco left out of her new album, but then again Marilyn Mifsud has a quality of voice in her singing that is clearly different from Malta’s queen of pop rock. This is the band’s fourth release and the second one for this year, so you can be sure that they will be receiving a very deserving number of votes on the end of year MMI Listeners’ Pick poll, which is due quite soon.

DeBee – Just Like You
I’ve never heard of this singer before nor do I know much about this song. What I do know is that she wrote this song with guitarist Wayne Camilleri and recorded it at Peter Borg’s Railway Studio. Peter Paul Galea (of Tribali fame) produced the song along with Camilleri and Borg. I really like this singer’s voice and I’d love to hear more from her, as well as more about her. Perhaps someone will care to upload some information to the M3P page, which for now, as I write this, remains (next to) empty. Hopefully not for long.

Anidroc – Did I
Mario Cordina is someone I’ve gladly featured on previous editions of the MMI podcast. So I was thrilled to find that he is now recording with this new Szczecin/Berlin band, in a style that is very different from his fun-loving Skambomambo and Ambulanza. Apparently this song comes from an album called Good Morning, but I need to look into all this at some point because there’s still hardly anything about Mario’s projects on the M3P wiki.

Dimal feat. Lyndsay – Let’s Make It Happen
Dimal is now an integral part of the Maltese dance-oriented pop/rap scene. He has done well to collaborate with Lyndsay Pace, who is one of the better Maltese pop singers; i.e. she has more sense than to aspire for Eurovision glory. I personally prefer her in her more rocky songs, but she’s made it happen for the Ukrainian MC here. Apparently it’s doing quite well on certain radio stations in Malta. I guess it’s also quite popular on the dance floors that feature this sort of music.

Chapter Zerofeat. Sixth Simfoni & feat. Ira Losco – Skeleton Key
Chapter Zero’s album Atomic Destruction Vol. 1 was released last Friday 12 October 2012. It features a number of contributions from all sorts of artists admired by CZ. It’s therefore no surprise that this track includes the talents of Sixth Simfoni and Ira Losca. I had hoped there would be another Dirty Iris video for this track, but perhaps it’s still on the way. In any case, I’m sure the album will do well among those who like this sort of music.

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 316th Mużika Mod Ieħor podcast featuring music by performers from or in Malta:

Chordust – Not a Fan (Of You)
A follow-up to their debut release Hyperbloic Attitude from just a few months ago, Floren Sultana and the boys return with this corker of a song that’s bound to endear them to a growing fanbase. I’m a little disappointed that the song doesn’t come with a promotional music video at the time of release, but perhaps I’m getting a little spoiled with all the video around for so many new tracks these days.

Weeping Silence – Love Lies Bleeding
Female fronted metal bands were all the rage not too long ago. Some of them have survived beyond the trend, of course, and this is one of them. Rachel Grech’s vocals blend in well with the neo-metal sounds of this Maltese band, which has been quite busy this year getting their new album ready for their fans. It’s called For the Unsung, and I’m sure that it will get quite a few votes come voting time on the 2012 MMI Listeners’ Picks Poll.

Stefanos – Love In Your Eyes
The long awaited new album from Stefanos, Still Waters Run Deep, has been released and it’s by far the best work he has produced to date. He is also proving himself to be quite prolific releasing CD albums at the rate he has been doing over the past couple of years. Here we see him collaborating intrinsically with fellow guitarist Demis Fenech, who is responsible for recording, mixing and producing the whole album, aside from appearing as guest musician on a number of the tracks, including this one.

Winter Moods – Closer
To mark the passing of guitarist Steve Caruana Smith is-Serp at the age of 51 this week, I think it’s quite appropriate to end this podcast with one the final recordings he made with Winter Moods back in 2005, just a few months before parting company with the band he co-founded with his fellow Senglea mates in the mid-1980s. Condolences to his loved ones. May he rest in peace.

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 315th Mużika Mod Ieħor podcast featuring music by performers from or in Malta:

Corinna – Battle of Wills
I’m not particularly a fan of this sort of formulaic dance music, but Corinna has a decent voice and this song has attracted considerable airplay on several radio stations in Malta. I’m sure there’s a following for this type of music, so I see no reason why I shouldn’t include it on my podcast. Other than this, I’d also like to have a proper cross-section of styles across the MMI Listeners’ Picks poll, which is coming up in a few weeks time.

Aaron Benjamin – Live Forever
Much of what I said about the opening song on this week’s podcast goes for this new track from Aaron Benjamin. Not sure what else I can add other than the fact that this one was written by D. Sherman and A. Gilbert, UK-based writers for X Factor finalists, it was produced by The Flames at Aerostorm Studios in London, but the vocals were recorded, produced and mastered by Peter Borg at his Railway Studios in Malta.

Melchior Sultana – Holding On
A couple of weeks ago I featured a track by Hadrian Mansueto that had a guitar track by Melchior Sultana. It is therefore very fitting that this week I’m playing a new track by Sultana himself. This is taken from a netlabel called Batti Batti Music, which has released a number of works by Maltese electronica musicians other than Sultana. This track is taken from an EP that came out a few weeks ago featuring various artists, called simply EP 3. It’s also BB11, which means it’s the eleventh release from this label…but there have already been more releases since this came out.

Joseph Portelli – How the Times Have Changed
This Maltese-Australian singer-songwriter has already appeared on the MMI series of podcast in a previous edition under the name Jay P, which is how he was known until a little while ago. Currently back in the Maltese Islands he has just released an EP under his real name, featuring this song and a couple of other released on 10 September 2012 via iTunes and a couple of other digital download sites. All net funds raised from the sales of his EP are being donated to support Alzheimer’s Disease International. Quite a laudable cause, I’d say.

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 314th Mużika Mod Ieħor podcast featuring music by performers from or in Malta:

Planet Seed – It’s Gonna Be OK
This is the debut release from a relatively new band with a front man who is no stranger to the local music scene. The singer is Klinsmann Coleiro and by the sound of things he really has finally grown up into a relatively bona fide pop rock star for the local scene. This song is receiving, and will undoubtedly continue to receive, relatively heavy radio airplay in Malta. At this rate, 2013 may indeed turn into Klinsmann’s best year in a decade. At least now he has a solid band backing him, so much so that this really sounds like a band rather than another KC vehicle.

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

KOI feat. Indi Loveless – Away
KOI is slowly but surely turning into a Finnish band. Wayne Camilleri remains the lead guitarist in the band, but Errol Sammut has been replaced with Indi Loveless and a host of other musicians from Finland. To my ears, the band has a new sound and I’m not sure why it’s still called KOI; then again, it’s as good a name as any for a rock band.

Footprints – So Long
Following on from last year’s 777 album, one of Malta’s longest standing Christian rock bands returns with a new single, which was released tonight during this year’s Notte Bianca, with a show at the Upper Barrakka Gardens in Valletta. They will be appearing again at St. Lawrence Collegiate Church in Vittoriosa during Birgufest on 20 October 2012.

APOLOGY: I’m very sorry to have referred to this band as Footsteps rather than Footprints during this week’s podcast. It’s just one of those things that make me feel stupid sometimes. I should really know better!

Adie – Kiss and Tell Me Goodbye
Following on from last year’s Reaction, the video of which was picked by the MMI podcast listeners as the top video for 2011, Adie returns with this new single produced by Elton Zarb. The song is written by songwriters Gosta Hulden and Jan Lochel from Sweden and New Yorker Charles Mason. I think the country tinge fits Adie’s pop stylings well. Perhaps she’ll see that this is a good direction for her in the coming years and turns out to be the strongest female country pop artist to emanate from the Maltese Islands – a sort of more local radio friendly version of Marty Rivers, perhaps. There’s certainly a gap there in the local music scene.

Janvil – Make My Day
Ian J. Vella is better known in Malta as J.Anvil, but he rebranded himself as Janvil earlier this year. So this is Janvil’s first ever non-Eurovision what’s it release. It’s a catchy song written by Melanie Georgiou, which he recorded at G.G Studios in London last July. I sincerely hope that he continues to entertain Maltese pop audiences as he is someone whose smile I have admired for many years, even if his musical choices aren’t necessarily always to my personal taste.

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: 20:21 — 18.7MB) | Embed

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