Slow down a little via shortwave radio

A big thanks again to DJ Frederick and all the Imaginary Stations Crew for broadcasting the Downbeat on Shortwave 2 show over the weekend via those radio transmitters at Shortwaveradio.de

The show featured a hands across the world collaboration between Jesse Yuen from Perth, Australia and One Deck Pete from Catford Village, UK who played two 15 minute mixes each in a back to back style featuring some downtempo business to slow things down in our life.

We’ve posted up two recordings of the show. The first is the stereo studio recording and below that, the off-air recording via the shortwaves recorded in glorious mono. There’s added texture to the show thanks to signals bouncing off the ionosphere/groundwave propagation and someone next door switching on their toaster.

Heading to the moon on a friday night (on a 60 plus travelcard)

 

We were compiling some tunes for a space leaning shortwave mix and came across this belter of a dub. It’s off a set called Moon Dub EP by Invadread. The track is by Baodub and called Dub of the moon and it is one catchy dub and has a touch of the Keith Levine’s in there and a bit of a Doctor Who vibe somewhere. A tune!

Another moon themed tune…

As the lyrics go “Neil Armstrong the first human on the Moon and the Pan Afros the first men to play the tune”. Brilliant!

They Could Have Been Bigger than the Beatles

At 2.58 above is a tune that made us smile this week while putting together another shortwave mix for Imaginary Stations. It’s called Beatles and the MBE from Lord Short Shirt & The Silhouettes and even if you’re not keen on the Fab Four this’ll cheer you up.

“No WSTLing at WORK” said the foreman

Here’s the audio of the weekend just gone Imaginary Station show WSTL/WORK in a whistling while you work tip. Expect all sorts of tunes from related genres (including Heavy Whistling and Gainful Employment-core) and at 22.30 there’s a mix by One Deck Pete called “Work while you whistle”.

Here’s the tracklisting:
The silhouettes – Get a job (excerpt) (00.01)
コディ – Clocking In (00.19)
Nexotica – Whistlin’ Blues (04.21)
Whistling Kettle in dub (6.40)
The Secret Whistle – Lebensmittelvergiftung (07.00)
Paul Blackford – Night Shift (11.20)
Phoenix City All-stars – Career Opportunities Dub (excerpt) (14.03)

Tune in and enjoy the sound of WSTL/WORK!

A two tune Wednesday selection

While doing a shortwave mix the other night we came across this duo we’ve never heard of before called The Secret Whistle. It’s a great name and turns out they’re from Portland, Oregon and they make some fine tunes. Here’s two here.

From Beatles to Bigfoot to Aetherius

Here’s the audio of Imaginary Station’s From Beatles to Bigfoot broadcast last weekend via Shortwave Gold, a show full of the songs of Lennon/McCartney covered in a way you’ve never heard before. Also beatles soundalikes, plus UFOs, flying saucers and a Yeti Choir (*subject to availability). It’s a odd mixture but a very nice odd mixture featuring contributions from all of the Imaginary Stations crew.

At 14.04 mins in One Deck Pete brings you a UFO themed mix called “A pint of lager please Earthman”. The tracks are:
Tena Stelin – UFO
Jah Warrior – Unidentified Flying Dub
The other self – Men from Venus
The Psychedelic Aliens – Blofonyobi Wo Atale
Meridian Brothers – Guaracha U.F.O (No Estamos Solos…) (excerpt)

Limited copies come with an extra “via the ionosphere” mix

A big thanks to DJ Frederick and Imaginary Stations for broadcasting Downbeat on Shortwave last weekend via the transmitters of  Shortwave Gold. The show featured two 15 minute mixes in a downtempo style back to back from Jesse Yuen (Australia) and One Deck Pete (London, SE23).

We’ve posted up two recordings of the show. The first is the stereo studio recording and below that, the off-air recording via the shortwaves recorded in glorious mono. Fading and extra noises thanks to the ionosphere/groundwave.

Big shout to Jesse Yuen for getting involved and into the spirit of this shortwave radio project of ours.

Music opens up a whole can of worms (and more)

We’ve had Bargain Bin DJ (an A5 24 page fanzine) for a couple of weeks now (“print in the old fashioned way” as the song goes) produced by our good friend DJ Frederick from Groveton, New Hampshire.

If you love those bargain bin finds, this publication is for you. We don’t want to give too much away but issue number 1 has a review of Record Time magazine (the newest edition of said publication has all sorts of musical features from Polka to Sex Pistols inspired novelty records), Lawrence Welk, Kado Wilson, Forgotten 45’s from 1955, Sounds of Synanon, Moondog and Surf-Punk New Hampshire hero, Jonee Earthquake.

An excellent read if you love music found in the cheapo section or in a box hidden away under some damp smelling jumpers and coats in a charity shop. Cheers to Bargain Bin DJ fanzine for alerting us to the tune above under “sound-alike or plagiarism?”. A great track off an LP called Mood Indigo by Jean Jacques Perrey, “influenced” possibly by a tune called Telstar. We reckon it’s more than likely to be a tribute to the great Joe Meek. It’s a great one and we love the run out which we want it to go on forever.

If you want to find out more about obtaining the fanzine drop Fred an email at radiothriftshopnh@gmail.com

And here’s two sides a Bargain Bin classic of ours. An excellent single from Jamaican singer Jimmy James (he of Jimmy James and the Vagabonds later in his career). Wonderful stuff.

 

Turn up the heat

Below is the recording of last weekend’s WARM show from Imaginary Stations. It’s a great show featuring an hour of tunes to raise the temperature including a mix at 3.57 from One Deck Pete called Feeling hot, hot, hot. Tracklistings are:
Cass. – Ethan Veerbek
Bunny Wailer – Love Fire (Version)
Blundetto featuring Courtney John – Warm My Soul
Mice Parade – Warm Hand in Farmland (Stereolab remix)

Tune into the show and forget about the cold weather here at the moment.

Oh to be by the sea!

A few days ago we heard from our good friend from Japan, Stevyn from the great Iron Feather Journal fanzine who is away on holiday at the moment. He said “Hokkaido is minus 10 and there’s tons of snow so we took a mini vacation and flew south to Okinawa (pic above) and now relaxing by the sea side”. He sent us this picture below from his holidays of part of a jungle with a genuine viper warning! That’s brilliant Stevyn. We hope you had a great Christmas and that you’re having a great holiday, cheers for the pics.