Category Archives: Madtone

It only takes a minute

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Reading the latest article on SWLing Post here about BBC interval signals, it reminded us of the wonderfully simple and direct “B–B–C” in the tonic scale used on shortwave for the BBC World Service and other transmissions to Africa.

We’ve always loved it and recently used it in a one-minute slightly odd piece from Madtone called “It Is AI, but we created it” for the 60 Sec Radio 2026 contest here, where “anything is possible as long as it’s 60 seconds long.”

The piece is below and features the said BBC interval signal alongside an excerpt of an strange ham radio conversation on 2 metres about AI generated music. We’re not that keen on AI generated music here funnily enough.

The contest is still open, so if you have 60 seconds radio collage, send it to the website here.

Music for a Monday night

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Cheers to our mate Will for sending us this musical recommendation, a collection called Bootlegs II by Tribilin Sound and there’s 34 tracks for 10 US dollars which is a bargain. The opener The Poor Man Cumbia has a bit of the warped out sounds of an off-centre pressing and is a do over we think of Barrington Levi‘s Poor Man’s Style. Wonderful stuff!

And we love the mad remix of José María Arguedas’ Carnaval De Tambobamba. There’s a little bit of everything on this set from Massive Attack and Madonna and well worth investigating.

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

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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!

Shout to all the twin cities reggae radio crew

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A big shout to our good friend Dr Strangedub who presents The Echo Chamber (with DJ Baby Swiss ) on KFAI out of Minneapolis, Minnesota for playing Jasmine Tutum & Madtone‘s Earth Citizen on this morning’s show at 37mins in (tune in here).

As we have said many times before, the Echo Chamber is the show to tune into on a Wednesday morning at 8am UK time for 4 hours (count them) of reggae, dub, downtempo and all sorts of bass heavy stuff and more. Cheers again Dr Strangedub!

And here’s a great track from the show called Don’t worry what the people think about you (Dub) from Dubblestandart & Jasmine Tutum.

XRPT on your RADIO

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Here’s the audio of yesterday’s transmission from Imaginary Stations, a show called XRPT, a compilation of Imaginary Stations shows past, present and future. It’s an interesting listen and includes contributions from all the crew, DJ Frederick, Justin Patrick Moore and at 21 minutes in is a mix from One Deck Pete called Bits and Pieces (nothing to do with Smiley Miley and The Radio 1 Roadshow of course!)

Bits and Pieces tracks:
Donut Specialist – As advertised (KMRT)
Alan Ginsberg vs Anima Universalis Into The forest – A supermarket in California (KMRT)
Beatz for Food – Frozen Food (KMRT)
The Conet Project – Phonetic Alphabet NATO (WORD)
Giorgio (Moroder) – Stop (WORD)
Christine Miller – Word Sound and Power (WORD)
Ham QSO – What’s it like being a token male? (KNTS)
Kwook – Calling all stations 1 (KNTS)
Jodey Kendrick – QYJ 9 (KNTS)

More bass, more drums and more harp please

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Over the years we’ve discovered some great reggae tunes featuring some strange bed fellows instrument-wise including (above) this bit of banjo dub by Andy’s All-Stars called Banjo Serenade (Cheers Steve Barker for playing this). And it was only a couple of weeks we found out about the great  Alex Porteus/Jah Bottle Head (actually caught in action using said instrument at 18 seconds in and a few more times below).

And tonight we have found some harp dub. The below is from Lo Free Meditation, T-key Free Meditation, Ha Lan Leduc and called Hola Harp part 1. Wonderful stuff!

In an international instrumental style

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Here’s the audio of yesterday’s Shortwave Gold broadcast of Skybird Radio International on 3975/6160 kHz.

The show is all about grooves from around this world of ours but this time it’s about the instrumental. There’s some wonderful eclectic music in a true worldwide style as usual from all of the Imaginary Stations DJ’s including DJ Frederick and Justin Patrick Moore.

At 29 seconds in is a mix from One Deck Pete, here’s the tracklistings:
Madtone – Diamonds in the sky (excerpt)
Hermanos Gutiérrez – Cumbia Lunar
Mouth – Ooh, Ahh, Yeah
BackYard Riddims/Tommy Khosla (Sitar) – SchaantiDub
Bob Keene Orchestra – Comin’ on Again
The Supersonics – Second Fiddle

Have a listen to the show as it’s brilliant and you’re welcome to add the singing bits yourself!

The sky’s the limit, the limit’s the sky’s

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Here’s the audio of yesterday’s Skybird Radio International which was broadcast via the services of Shortwave Gold. It’s all about grooves from around this world of ours and there’s some wonderful eclectic music in a true worldwide style from all of the Imaginary Stations including DJ Frederick and Justin Patrick Moore.

At 03.28 there’s a mix from One Deck Pete and here’s the tracklistings:
Madtone – Diamonds in the sky (excerpt)
Entjar Tjarmedi, Enip Sukanda, et al – Berber Lajar
Narcy – Bedaya
Leik – Toy Center at night
Los Zheros – Para Chachita
Dr Charty – Falling in Dub

So tune in and enjoy the show with just under an hour of worldwide tunes!