Blog

Show notes for the 274th Mużika Mod Ieħor podcast featuring music by performers from or in Malta:

Beangrowers – The Farewell Party
This evening (22/10/11) Beangrowers returned to the stage in Malta for the first time in 3 years to celebrate a retrospective of their four album releases (48K, Beangrowers, Dance Dance Baby and Not in a Million Lovers) at V-Gen in Paceville. The gig featured an opening show by Yasmin Kuymizakis, making her debut live appearance on the local scene. It seems that the Beanies are working on a new album too. Anyway, we couldn’t let all this slide by on the MMI podcast and decided to open this week’s edition with a song from 2004’s Dance Dance Baby to make sure we mark this moment in time.

Caravana Sun – Waiting
A few weeks ago I opened the MMI podcast with Feel Better, the delightful debut release from Luke Caruana’s Caravana Sun, which is the new name for the Sydney band formerly known as Carra. They are about to release their debut CD album at Bondi Beach entitled Rising Falling next Saturday (29/10/11) and they also released another video for the opening track from the album. The video 808 HD images set and shot under the cover of night in an abandon house using various LEDs, torches and flames to bring to life the haunted space that spilled into every room of a once-loved home. As each light source is introduced, it leads you into various rooms of the house, venturing under broken floorboards and through shattered windows.

The Run – Silver Clouds
This Gozitan trio made up of Ricky Bugeja, Matthew Cauchi and Mario Cauchi make their debut with this song and a name that apparently comes from the first letters in Really Undecided Name. This bluesy song is quite ambition sounding, not least because of its accompanying video (produced by Ricky Bugeja , but the band seems fairly aware of where it stands and can only really improve on this offering in the coming months and years.

Stephanie Zammit – No Hate Song
Relatively fresh from the significant impact she made on the local pop scene along with the pop act Baklava at the Malta Eurovision Song Contest 2011, Stephanie Zammit returns with a self-penned song that shows she is more than a one trick pony. I don’t know what the future holds for Baklava nor if they will ever delight those who like me appreciate whatever’s Maltese in all genres of music, but I’m fairly certain that we haven’t heard the last of this singer. The song is rather under-produced but you it at least has the potential to help Stephanie attract attention to herself beyond Baklava. That will serve her in good stead either way.

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: 19:51 — 13.6MB) | Embed

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS | More

Show notes for the 273rd Mużika Mod Ieħor podcast featuring music by performers from or in Malta:

Lumière – The Fox & the Weasel
One of the alternative Maltese music scene’s favourite bands from the turn of the century returned yesterday (14/10/11) for a one-off reunion gig at V-Gen. Apparently the show, which also featured Skimmed as a support act, went down really well with the band’s old fans. To mark the occasion I thought it would be appropriate to play a track from their album It Seemed Like A Good Idea At The Time.  Others who are not used hearing Mario Vella sing in English may find this stuff quite amusing for a totally different reason.

Dolls For Idols – Rave ‘n Roll
Gearing up for the launch for their album Cut ‘n Paste on the 17th of November 2011, Dolls For Idols have released this song along with a promotional video you can watch here. This another great track from this young band. I still can’t get their Dance The Dance out of my head since I saw them live (twice in the same week!) a couple of years ago.  They’re really an entertaining band both live and on record.

Mathematikal – Far Into The Night (remix)
I’ve been meaning to play Mathematikal’s remix of nosnow/noalps hit from earlier this year for some time and I finally found the time to do it.  There are other remixes like this one in my pending folder, so I’ll probably be including these in the coming weeks as we get ready for the MMI Listeners’ Picks poll for 2011, which will certainly feature both this and the original track among the various nominations.  More about all that soon enough, and certainly before the awards season kicks into gear.

Vandroo feat. Chess – Relentless
Andrew Mizzi (aka Vandroo) is a newcomer to the local electronic dance scene. This is his debut release and it comes complete with a vocal track from Chess, who we heard in a rather different groove in the most recent edition of the MMI podcast. This brand of radio-friendly dance music can easily blend into the background unless it has something outstanding to draw attention to it. In the case of this track that attractive feature is undoubtedly Chess’ voice. All in all, however, Relentless is a good power-pop dance tune with very interesting vocal and production elements that indicate a promising artist in the making.

Aaron Benjamin – Let’s Dance
Keeping the dance beat going, this week’s final track on the podcast is the new single from singer Aaron Benjamin. The song was written and produced with elements based in both Sweden and Malta. The writers are Peter Wennerberg, Mathias Venge and Gaby Jangfeldt, while production and arrangments are by Peter Wennerberg with vocal arrangements by Boris Cezek at Doyaya Studio in Malta.

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: 20:08 — 13.9MB) | Embed

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS | More

Show notes for the 272nd Mużika Mod Ieħor podcast featuring music by performers from or in Malta:

Mystic Diversions – Qawsalla
Although it’s technically an Italian band, we like to claim Mystic Diversions as one of our own on account of Aidan Zammit (Lupi) being not only Maltese but also an artist who explores his ethic routes from time to time. We’ve had occasion to hear such works on previous edition of the MMI podcast but this track from the band’s 2002 album Beneath Another Sky is possibly one of the best hidden gems in his entire back catalog.

Melchior Sultana – It’s Raining Outside
It was a joy playing Melchior Sultana’s music on my podcast several years ago, when I first discovered is recordings online. He has matured considerably since then, even though he is (regrettably) of the radar from most people, even ardent fans of the alternative music scene in Malta. He released an album entitled World Is History just a few weeks ago and apparently he’s also gigging with a band these days. I’m particularly pleased to discover that this track from the new album comes with a promotional music video too. Perhaps he’ll finally get the broader audience attention he so truly deserves.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WD2lYcmU150

Chess – Somebody Else
Fran Galea is better known as Chess. We’ve heard her voice on the MMI podcast in previous editions but never have I been struck by its rich tonal qualities as I was on even the first listen of this track. As you can see from the video I’ve embedded her, the song is a collaboration between Chess and Yulia Hauer. I hope there’s more of this sort of thing in the pipeline because it certainly would make for a better use of this young singer’s voice, at least for my taste.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Qmwash-i2Y

Relikc – Nothin’ On My Mind
The fourth single by Relikc was recorded and produced by Niki Gravino, and mastered at the Exchange Mastering Studios in London. This young band fronted by Keith Zammit has come a long way since their debut a couple of years ago, but that’s to be somewhat expected since they’ve always enjoyed a relatively large following. I expect that this song will be among the high-flyers come the end of year MMI Listeners’ Picks poll. I wouldn’t be too surprised if we saw a music video for this song in the coming weeks either.

Norm Rejection – Belligerent
To mark the first anniversary since the launch of the M3P during Notte Bianca 2010, I thought it would be most appropriate to play something from one of the acts we presented that night as part of our inaugural celebrations. It’s no secret that Norm Rejection is one of my favourite Maltese hard rock bands of all time. It’s therefore quite serendipitous that they’ve issued the title track from their Belligerent CD as the second single from this 2011 release, following the earlier release of Kemm Hawn Dwejjaq fil-Pajjiż.

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: 18:50 — 12.9MB) | Embed

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS | More