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Show notes for the 305th Mużika Mod Ieħor podcast featuring music by performers from or in Malta:

Scar – White Lies
Few Maltese bands manage to milk as many radio “singles” from an album as Scar have done with their 2009 release Breaking Radio Silence. Perhaps they’re taking the title of the album rather literally. Then again, this eighth offering is not only worthy of radio airplay in Malta but certainly good enough to open this edition of the MMI podcast.

Funk Initiative – My Robot Monkey Army Is Better Than Yours
This is one of the more inventive Maltese rock bands that have appeared in recent years. Their videos are rather different from the usual stuff you expect from a band playing the sort of music they do. I have a feeling that one of these days they’re going to produce one which will attract a massive YouTube following, providing them with the sort of global exposure bands like this really crave.

Marmalja – Risposta
Rather than clump all the good/new Maltese hip hop tracks into one podcast I think it’s better to spread them out one or two at a time on (almost) every edition of Mużika Mod Ieħor. This new offering from Marmalja shows them maturing at a speed others should most definitely be envious of. They struck me from the very first time I heard them. They rarely disappoint…and especially not this time.

The Lost Sound – Miriam
Formed in 1966 from the ashes of a band called Mustang, this beat group (as bands were called in Malta back then) went on to record and release a 45 rpm single on vinyl featuring two songs written by Freddie Ellul. This one is sung by Manny Cefai who went on to have quite a checkered life in music over the subsequent decades. I must thank my friends Lawrence Magrin and Mario Axiaq for bringing this band to my attention again over the past few days. It may not be classic rock but the band’s name is quite remarkable in that the music of those 60s bands from Malta is indeed a relatively lost sound.

Carrie Haber – I’d Rather Die
The opening track from Carrie Haber’s 3-track Taurus EP finds her in full force, doing what she does best. Slowly but surely Carrie is finding her own voice and style in ways that can make her attract attention beyond Maltese shores. She deserves all the attention she can muster…and more.

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 304th Mużika Mod Ieħor podcast featuring music by performers from or in Malta:

Manwel T – Love You More
Malta prime dub master returns with a fresh sound built on this track from Giant Panda Guerrilla Dub Squad. I love opening the MMI podcast with this type of sound, so much so that you’ll find I’ve (almost) always so whenever I’ve included Manwel T’s dub’s on previous editions of the podcast.

Ira Losco – What I’d Give
In preparation for her next album, expected for release in time for the Christmas shopping spree of 2012, one Malta’s best known pop performers has released this track as a single. Ira Losco has come a long way since her previous dalliances with pop rock. Her latest incarnation shows her maturing into the worthy world class entertainer she should be recognized as.

Sarah De Bono – No Shame
Fresh from her success on the Australian version of hit television talent show The Voice, this young Maltese-Australian singer has just released both a single (on 29 June) and an album (on 13 July entitled No Shame. Surely Maltese pop fans will soon discover her the way they did with Natalie Gauci a few years back.

Sempliċiment tat-Triq – Iswed Tnejn Zokkor
Closing off this week’s podcast with some of the outstanding Maltese-language hip hop from S.T.T., which has become a force unto itself in the local rap scene. The video produced in collaboration with No Sweat Productions shows that although certainly not attempting to appease mainstream tastes in any way, there’s more to these guys then mere explicit rhymes. If not the new poets, these performers are at the very least the rightful heirs of the spritu pront mantel, which they’ve swiped from traditional għannejja without much fuss.

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 303rd Mużika Mod Ieħor podcast featuring music by performers from or in Malta:

Ellie & the Oscars – It’s Not a Crime
Eliza Borg and her band are back with another great track. Not sure why this band isn’t more popular in Malta than it already is. They sound really good and I suspect they’re not half bad live, even though I haven’t caught any of their gigs yet.

G-Force – Wasal il-Ġimgħa
What can I say? This is Maltese hip hop, which is slowly but surely finding its own voice within the subculture and spreading out into the mainstream. A video like the one produced here by Dirty Iris will go a long way in creating the indelible mark I’m talking about with regards to both the genre and the new generation of fans of Maltese songs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uB1px01X3FM

Kontroll – Easy
Is this a cult classic that previously escaped my attention? Does this band belong in the same category as BNI, RAS, Norm Rejection and Pupi tal-Logħob? And do they really have an album outa this year? Why is it there’s so little I can find about this band online? I really hope M3P can rectify this.

Stefanos – Navigate
Stefan Mifsud continues to record more rock guitar instrumentals as Stefanos for a new album due out after the end of this summer. This track is one of these new recording ands sees the guitarist return to his preferred style of strumming.

Inverse Shift – Impregnable
Andre and Josef from the defunct metal band CoreFrequency last year teamed up with Max from Abysmal Torment to form this new band called Inverse Shift. They have produced a debut album entitled Endgame. This is the opening track from this debut album. More of the same will be greatly welcome by the many fans they have a quid over the years in their previous band, particularly those who can appreciate some of the interesting departures they’re experimenting with here.

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: 20:31 — 18.9MB) | Embed

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Show notes for the 302nd Mużika Mod Ieħor podcast featuring music by performers from or in Malta:

Jane Doe – S.M.O.
The musicians in this band have been playing together since 2008 but it was only last summer 2011 that they started calling themselves Jane Doe, recording their debut single Shivery in January 2012. This follow-up release is part of their upcoming EP. If the rest is as good as all this, I must say that it will be a strong contender for one of my personal picks for this year come the annual poll for the MMI Listeners’ Top Picks.

The Crowns – Never Ends
Recorded at Temple Studios and with a video made by No Sweat Productions, led by Nick Morales, makes this band clearly one that is taking themselves seriously enough to ensure that they achieve an even stronger profile than they acquired in their initial outings over the past couple of years.

3 Artists – Our Time
Niki Gravino, Errol Sammut and Nick Morales, each known in his own right on the local music scene over the past decade or so have teamed up to create this Mobile Internet GO commercial that will launch on Monday 23 July 2012. It’s great that such a major Maltese corporation has picked alternative rock musicians to promote its wares. Whoever is behind this campaign deserves a pat on the back from more than the industry pundits who will undoubtedly see that this move will help them reach a segment of the audience that’s not as easy to reach as the mainstream, without alienating the latter.

Bletchley Park – Tight Red Dress
On 14 July 2012 Bletchley Park are set to launch their next album at V-Gen in Paceville. The album is called My Body Fighting and judging from this song seems to be harder than their previous offerings. I’ve seen this band live but I like the extra touch they give to their recordings, so I’m particularly looking forward to this album.

Harriet Cohen – India
I’m not sure why Bletchley Park singer Deborah Borg Brincat picked the name of an early 20th century British pianist to record this song as a soloist while her band prepare to launch their album. I fail to see why she wouldn’t record it under her own name or why this song would not be included on the upcoming Bletchley Park album. In any case, it’s worth listening and watching, while the contributions of Red Electrick’s Peter Borg and Matthew James Borg (as well as violinist Simon Vella) make it even more noteworthy than it would have been otherwise.

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: 21:07 — 19.4MB) | Embed

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