JOON Returns with Ġiżimina at Offbeat Valletta

JOON Revives Ġiżimina After a Decade with New Mini-Album “Id-Dlam Id-Dawl” and Live Return at Offbeat

Electro-pop artist JOON returns to Malta this month with a rare live performance of her long-running side project Ġiżimina, marking the project’s first public appearance in a decade. The event will take place on Friday 29 May at Offbeat Music Bar in Valletta, with doors opening at 8pm and the performance starting at 9pm. Entrance is free.

Best known internationally for her work as JOON, Yasmin Kuymizakis first introduced Ġiżimina through a series of performances and sound installations that revisited Maltese folk traditions through a contemporary feminist lens. Early works explored the relationship between gender, folklore, memory, and space, often confronting the contrast between public and private expression in Maltese culture.

Among these works was “Xandira Moqżieża” (“Filthy Broadcast”, 2015), an installation in which radios suspended from washing lines broadcast reinterpretations of għana songs, drawing attention to the historic divide between men singing publicly and women’s voices remaining within the domestic sphere. The project also reimagined traditional material including Mary Rose Mallia’s “Il-Bejjiegħa tal-Ward” (2016), transforming it into a meditation on overdevelopment and the rapid erosion of Malta’s urban and natural landscapes.

Now, ten years later, Ġiżimina returns in a more intimate and introspective form with the release of the new mini-album “Id-Dlam Id-Dawl”, due out on 8 May 2026. Built from chopped guitar samples sourced from the Magna Żmien archive, the seven-track release continues to draw from Maltese musical heritage while shifting its focus inward, exploring memory, identity, fragmentation, and renewal.

“With ‘Id-Dlam Id-Dawl’, Ġiżimina moves away from direct critique into something quieter and more reflective,” Kuymizakis explains. “It’s about holding space between past and present, where darkness and light meet, where things fall apart and slowly take shape again.”

The performance at Offbeat forms part of the venue’s ongoing programme of experimental and alternative live music events, which continue to expand the boundaries of Malta’s contemporary music scene while maintaining the intimate atmosphere for which the Valletta space has become known.