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Show notes for the 249th Mużika Mod Ieħor podcast featuring music by performers from or in Malta:

Monroe – Caged
Kelly Schembri caught the attention of the Maltese public a few weeks ago with her participation in the Malta Eurovision Song Contest. As Kelly Stelfox she has teamed up with this London-based girl group to release a single, which opens this week’s podcast. A couple of the other singers in the group accompanied her in Malta but here they perform as quite a solid ensemble.

Thea – Caught You Out
Not to be confused with Thea Garrett, Thea Saliba has been getting considerable airplay in Malta this year with this song, released late last year; to late, in fact, to be included in the MMI Listeners’ Picks Poll for 2010. I think that should entitle it to be nominated for this year’s MMI poll, but we’re still several months away from that. Perhaps she’ll release another recording making this remedial measure unnecessary.

Mathematikal – Black Magic
When I first discovered this electronica duo about 5 years ago I was blown away by the distinctive sound they had come up with. I managed to catch them live at the sadly defunct Poxx Bar in Paceville a couple of years later, and my initial impression was confirmed beyond a shadow of a doubt. I was therefore quite delighted to discover that they’ve returned with new material – or at least I hope it is, or at least it’s new to me. Time for their M3P page to be created, of course, before my memory starts playing more tricks on me.

Rumbull – Radio Rebelde
This UK-based Maltese hip hop artist released an album called Cut Throat Island a few months ago, and although I haven’t actually managed to get my hands on it, I came across one of the tracks on YouTube this week. It’s quite good, so I’ve decided to include it on this week’s podcast. I prefer my hip hop tracks in Maltese, but they’re equally delicious in English when the theme is clearly and distinctly Maltese, as it is here.

Hooligan – Fuq in-Nisa
The pioneer of Maltese-language hip hop returns with a new track, just in time for Women’s Day…or so it would seem. In some ways this song reminds me of some of the stuff John Laus used to produce in the 1970s. Not sure what the similarity really is, or if this is just in my head. I wonder if anyone else familiar with Laus’ songs and life/style gets the same vibe out of this. In any case, there’s no denying that Hooligan is the quintessential Maltese hipster.

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 248th Mużika Mod Ieħor podcast featuring music by performers from or in Malta:

Dusk – The Big Blue (Thinking of You)
A young new blues band from Malta. That’s one way to describe Dusk. Another way I’d describe them is to say that they exhibit great potential towards developing their own sound in the coming years, provided they stay together and open themselves up to all sort of new directions they could go towards. I, for one, will be listening to whatever else they throw our way next after this pleasant debut.

Red Electrick – Pick Up The Phone
Taken from 2010’s smash hit album Vine Lady, which received the highest number of listeners votes on last year’s top picks poll, this is the new single from the band that also managed to top the singles and the music video categories. This release guarantees them a place in the 2011 Listeners’ Picks Poll, of course, but it also demonstrates that this band embraces a broader range of musical styles than a first listen might lead you to believe.

Thea Garrett – Frontline
Hoping to move on from last year’s Eurovision disappointment, Thea returns with a solid pop single, which shows that she is certainly not a one trick pony. There’s a charming quality in her voice that I (and many others) like. This new song is the best I’ve ever heard her sound…certainly miles ahead of any of the countless covers we’ve been subjected to in the last couple of years. If she has learnt anything from her experiences to date, this teenage singer will possibly still blossom into one of Malta’s foremost pop singers in the coming years.

Martina Borg – Hold Me Till I’m Gone
Discovering this singers Reverbnation page and the variety of songs presented there was one of the joys I experienced in recent days, as I was trawling the internet for new material to include on the MMI series of podcasts. I had never seen or heard of her before but I certainly hope to hear much more from her in the coming months…and I’ll certainly, gladly, play another one of her songs in an upcoming edition of the MMI podcast.

Żdongraap & Vinnie Skillz – Konnesjoni
Maltese-language hip hop is among the things I’ve discovered through my weekly podcasts and it has turned into one of my preferred genres of music from the Maltese islands. Vinnie Skills has appeared under various guises in previous editions of the MMI podcast, not least as a prominent member of Sixth Simfoni, but this is the first time I’ve heard him rap in Maltese. I’ve no idea (yet) who or what Żdongraap stands for, but judging by this track I certainly want to find out and see about what else there’s to discover and include in the future editions of my podcast.

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: 20:01 — 13.8MB) | Embed

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Show notes for the 247th Mużika Mod Ieħor podcast featuring music by performers from or in Malta:

Jon Lukas Woodenman – Never Go Away
As resilient as ever, Malta’s most venerable ever pop export returns with his first recording post-cancer treatment. With a reduced lung capacity he’s still as delightful as ever to listen to and, at least to my ears, if anything his style seems to have matured even more than it had when Jon Lukas reinvented himself as Woodenman about a decade or so ago.

Pete Molinari – Since You’ve Been Gone
Bruce Springsteen is among is his most notable fans, and yet Pete Molinari remains relatively unknown to many people in Malta, one of countries that gives him the blood and genetic characteristics that he has. Taken from last year’s album A Train Bound for Glory, this song is being released officially as a single on Tuesday 1 March 2011.

Sonitus Eco – Infinite Chord
Justin Meli returns as Sonitus Eco with Pink Pube’s first release for 2011: Steel Plateau was released on 21 February. This type of electronic music is super extra chilled out and rather minimalistic, to such a degree that it may even please those listeners who normally don’t care much about electronica.

Hunters Palace – Tal-Metall
It’s very unusual for anyone to release a single on vinyl these days.  A 10-inch single is even rarer than that, and yet Hunters Place have done both. You can hear side A from this release on this week’s podcast. Even better than all that is the fact that this song from one of Malta’s more progressive bands is in Maltese. I’m really looking forward to getting my copy of the 10-inch release, even though I no longer have a turntable to play it on. Perhaps this will drive me to either buy a USB-enable record player or see about re-engineering an old turntable to add to my rather simple playback arsenal.

X-Bones & Qoton – Filgħodu Kmieni
I’m so glad to have found a digitized recording of this 45 rpm release from 1977. It gives me great pleasure to play it on this week’s podcast because it also gives me the opportunity to focus some attention on it and the musicians and singers involved (both directly and indirectly) with it in the M3P database. It’s a part of the soundtrack of my childhood too and I have a feeling that this will be the very first time that a new generation will be hearing this recording. Please feel free to comment below if you’ve never heard this song before, or if you haven’t heard this in a while and it brings back memories from over 30 years ago.

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: 20:01 — 13.8MB) | Embed

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Show notes for the 246th Mużika Mod Ieħor podcast featuring music by performers from or in Malta:

Friday PM – Milky Way
The M3P is slowly but surely becoming a place for me to discover material to include on my podcast. The years during which this band was active coincide with the first few years of my departure for Malta. During those years (before I started doing the MMI podcast in 2005) I had lost touch almost completely with the local music scene. I’m so glad to have discovered the music of Friday PM and the various recordings they made during the years they were together. This genre of music has rarely been recorded by Maltese musicians, and it makes it even more special just for that.

Zamphyre – Princes of Psychedelia
I was delighted to hear this relatively long track from a new band whose sound and musical style hark back to the late 1960s and early 1970s when Pink Floyd made this type of music obligatory listening for a whole generation. The song has a befitting title that almost fits this band because they are certainly not kings of psychedelia, even though they may have the potential to raise the genre to a notable status in the spectrum of music recordings made in Malta.

Ruben Zahra & MPO – Pastorale Pastiche
Again harking back to another time when unusual instruments were combined with orchestras, Ruben Zahra has finally managed to do what no one else before him really did with any success: introduce the Maltese traditional żaqq (bagpipe) into a piece of contemporary orchestral music as a solo instrument. Zahra’s Pastorale Pastiche is presented here from a video released recently of the concert given my the Malta Philharmonic Orchestra on 9 January 2011, better known as the President’s New Year Concert.

The Granules – The Gut
A few months ago I placed a track from the defunct Maltese rock band Lord Adder. I also mentioned that their singer, Mark Spiteri, is now working with a new group, which back then was working under the name The Gut Lads. That band has now become The Granules and one of their very first recordings, released with a YouTube slideshow featuring photos from the glory days of Strada Stretta/Strait Strett in Valletta, certainly embodies the name the band had originally adopted. This is all marvelous stuff for the M3P and I’m sure others will enjoy it too in other contexts, for which it is actually intended.

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: 20:30 — 14.1MB) | Embed

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