Operating under the rather conspicuous name of Bila, one finds three Maltese musicians who do not really need any introduction, being that they’re pretty familiar faces on the local alternative music scene playing in their other bands. Rooted in punk rock, the idea to form this band came to Nick’s mind while he was on tour around Europe with notorious Maltese hiphop act Sempliċiment tat-Triq, and in next to no time he had roped in Caroline and Martha to start working on this new project.
Brimming with hardcore, punk and noise rock references, Bila’s first public forays included performances at this year’s Rock The South festival, as well as Remedy and Django, the latter also being their most recent local gig and the first of three dates the band is playing as part of their Winter Wonderlost Tour that will see them performing two gigs in Italy tomorrow (Molaf, San Dona’ Di Piave) and on Saturday (Impianti Sportivi Parabae, Salettuol, Veneto) to promote the launch of their 6-track demo L**a.
Despite not being around that long, Bila have already attracted a lot of attention, catching the ear of Italian band Angler thanks to a post on Malta Punkbands’ Facebook page and the support of local punk legend Baħri, who brought Angler to Malta to perform a three-way gig alongside Bila and his own R.A.S. punk band. The connection has gone beyond just performing together, with the Angler-linked Youth of Today collective's record label signing Bila and outting out the aforementioned 6-track demo cassette tape. The L**a demo is also available to stream and/or purchase online here, though I'm presuming most people will go for the streaming!