The Nil By Mouth alternative mini-festival is back for another edition on the 30th of September. After a couple of years of inactivity, this year sees the Maltese festival taking things to a whole new level with four big international acts.

The Wedding Present, Weval, Happyness and Pional will all be performing on one night at the amazing Dome (right next to Aria Club), and they’ll also be getting support from local acts The Velts, KNTRL and Fabricka.

Fans of the local alternative scene will instantly recognise the names Trackage Scheme and Hairyamp Promotions. Two of Malta’s biggest promoters when it comes to the electronic and indie scenes respectively, Trackage and Hairyamp both cater to a similar crowd of people who love to try out something other than the mainstream A collaboration between the two would be instant gold for many of their followers, and collaborate they did; for the first time ever, this year’s edition of the NBM festival is a joint effort between the two promoters.

So, who’s who?

The Wedding Present 

These guys were one of the UK’s top bands in the late 80s and the early 90s, earning 18 Top-40 singles in their home country alone. John Peel, a veteran DJ who earned the title of broadcasting legend after having discovered dozens of major bands during his 40-year broadcasting career, had confessed that The Wedding Present were one of his most-played bands.

Weval

On the other end of the spectrum is the Dutch duo Weval. The electronic duo’s debut was just four years ago, but Weval are already being hailed one of Holland’s finest musical exports to date. The two friends’ musical project is growing at an outrageous rate, and they’ve just spent a whole summer playing at some of the biggest festivals in Europe. Popular music blog Pitchfork described Weval’s 2013 debut as being “perfectly-sequenced, mysterious and moody, the fully formed nature of their song-writing sublime, their pacing and monolithically tasteful atmosphere is remarkable”. To make matters a whole lot better, Weval will performing an entirely live set in Malta for Nil By Mouth. 

Happyness

Back to the indie scene, this British trio couldn’t sound any more American. Heavily influenced by bands such as Pavement and Yo La Tengo, they’ve received great critical acclaim from the likes of The Guardian, Uncut and Q. In a spread about them on NME from 2014, Happyness had talked about Maltese trio Cat Cake (who will actually be making an unexpected return very soon). Now, they’ll finally be hitting our shores. And who knows; the two bands might finally meet in person!

Pional

The only international one-man-show on this year’s line-up, Pional more than makes up for the lack of band members on stage. The Madrid-based electronic artist has released official remixes of big names like The XX, Frank Ocean and The Rapture. He was described by Spain’s most circulated daily newspaper El Pais as being a “mainstay of the national electronic music scene”, and many people will definitely be glad to know he’s be bringing his DJing magic to Malta’s shores.

As for the local scene, Trackage Scheme and Hairyamp Promotions will also be giving a once-in a lifetime opportunity for three Maltese acts to grace the stage along with these four festival headliners. 

Local indie band The Velts, electronic wizard Fabricka (Simon Grech), and KNTRl, the latest project by Dolls for Idols frontman Clint Spiteri.

“Due to various reasons, this year’s edition has been a few years in the making,” Jean Zammit of Hairyamp, one of the original organisers of the Nil By Mouth festivals, told Lovin Malta. “The festival was previously staged at the sadly-missed V-Gen club in Paceville. But we’re now back, and this year’s edition promises to be bigger, better, and more ambitious than ever”.

“This is our biggest event to date,” Trackage Scheme main-man Ben Vincenti said. “If you love great music, you can’t afford to miss this”.

For more information on the NBM festival, check out the official Facebook event page. Tickets for the event are still available online, but they’re understandably selling fast, so don’t sit on this one too long. 

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David Grech Urpani

Lovin Malta's Head of Content, Dave has been in journalism for the better half of the last decade. Prefers Instagram, but has been known to doomscroll on TikTok. Loves chicken, women's clothes and Kanye West (most of the time).