Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1188980
THIS WEEK MUSIC maltatoday | SUNDAY • 1 DECEMBER 2019 4 TEODOR RELJIC speaks to Noah Fabri about Karmaġenn, a multi-disciplinary, multi- artist project ostensibly led by him and stemming from the desire to tell a coming-of-age story about a constellation of Junior College students over Christmas time, whose inaugural album will be launched on December 6 at Off beat, Valletta Teodor Reljic A musical army of friends Karmagenn sounds like a very particular musical project, given both its general musical direction and the sheer amount of members involved in it. How did the idea of it all come about, and how would you say it differs from other musical bands/projects on the island? I've wanted to tell this story for a while; it's based on the people I knew at Junior College, and on things I ob- serve in the streets. I started working on what turned into its lyrics first, messing around with different images and anecdotes and stories. A collabo- rative album seemed to be the natural way to tell the story, so I decided to write and record every song with one or two other artists and build the al- bum up that way. I wanted to like learn from my friends and how they make music, so part of the fun of this project was going to friends' garages, and homes, and writing and recording the album with them there. I'm not sure what makes it different from other lo- cal music, other than that it has this story going through it, because it in- volves a lot of people from other local projects. How did the project evolve to the point where you've started putting together this upcoming album? It started out with the story. Then it was like, meeting up with different people, playing them ideas, seeing how they work, and recording. I had to structure this album a little dif- ferently from previous projects I've worked on, where I would have just written and recorded a lot of mate- rial and then picked and chosen the ones I liked best. Based on the ideas we'd come up with, and the mood of the songs, I figured out how the story could fit, so I had to figure out a se- quence pretty early on. I recorded with Mark Abela 'iz- Zizza' first, and he really supported me not just by playing on the album, but also by letting me borrow his PA for a gig and use his garage to record with Rafel Grima. I took that song to Jimmy Bartolo; Samwel Mallia and I worked on a song that Mario Vella came to sing on, on the same day that Leo Chircop took a few pictures. I took a few demos to Michael Vella Zarb who drummed on them, and Ryan Farrugia came over to play sax on one; Keith Fenech played trumpet on another. I redid a few demos to structure them a bit more, then reworked them with Caroline Spiteri, Rebbeca and Martha Theuma. And I wanted the story to come through on the album's artwork, so I met Martina Farrugia and Carl Caruana, we talked about I find a kind of catharsis, not just by the sea, but even in the movement of bodies around the Gżira/ Msida/Ħamrun/ Marsa area, and the contradictions of Malta as it gentrifies, and the energ y of all these diverse communities which are all Maltese and negotiate really fascinating identities Karmagenn album cover, illustration by Martina Farrugia