SPEW

I wouldn’t know a damn thing about the Maltese were it not for my friend, Todd Newman. Todd is a wonderful singer-songwriter himself with a pretty sweet recorded legacy, including one record, Too Sad for Words, that I co-produced. Todd is a devotee generally of the best of J-pop. He’s especially a fan of an artist named Asako Ota. She’s the driving force behind the Maltese. Previously, she led another band called the Dog Hair Dressers.   I’m not sure what her fixation on canines is about, and I’ll damn sure never know from listening to her music, because all the lyrics are in Japanese, which is Greek to me.   What I do know is that she’s a damn fine songwriter, singer and guitarist. Her singing is gracefully tuneful, never overpowering, her playing strong and accomplished, but never showy; everything Ota does is dedicated to her really, really good songs. The music she makes is loosely categorizable as power-pop, and the Maltese isn’t twee; they’re not afraid of the po...