‘ere, can you spare us any bubble wrap or jam jars for the garden mate?

It’s been a lovely day here in south London today and it looks like the temperature will drop again a little from tomorrow. Looking at the weather forecast for the next week it could be anything from 6-10 degrees C overnight so hopefully no frosts.

We’re taking no chances here as don’t want to lose any plants overnight even though they have been hardened off over the last few weeks. We’ve put three tomato plants out and some sweet peas but we’re still covering them at night with some improvised protection from bubble wrap, jam jars and the terrarium we found years ago that is now a bit cracked at the side and missing its glass top and now has some polythene on the top. Who cares what the frost protection looks like as long as it’s doing its job! More sunny weather please.

And we started a day with a great tune and we end it on another one. It’s by Jah Version out of Lisbon, Portugal with Friendship (Vocal Dub). Turn it up.

This is the year of the cosmos

With the pictures Debby H kindly sent of her garden in the last post, she also sent us some pics of how her cosmos seeds were doing. “I planted some cosmos seeds on Thursday afternoon. By this morning (Sunday), they had germinated!” (pic above). How good is that?

Then on Monday she sent us pictures of how quick the seedlings have grown (taken about 25 hours later after the original photographs). As she said “I find the growth since yesterday to be quite amazing” and we agree!

She also sent some useful information about the seedlings that we didn’t know “…cosmos plants have long roots, even when they are small, so egg-boxes didn’t work well last year. This time, I have tried to use the cardboard insides of toilet rolls. I put these in a plastic trug planter thingy to keep them upright and stable.”

Now that is a great tip Debby and good luck with the seedlings. We sowed some yesterday (Tuesday) and hoping we get some quick germination results too. Thanks again.

 

STOP PRESS: A picture from today (Wednesday). They are looking great Debby and ta for the update!

Radio Freedom

Typically we finished a shortwave mix and just after it was sent off, we found another one we could have used while looking for something completely different. This one is from many years ago from Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry vs The Moody Boyz called International Broadcaster (feat. Roots Manuva & LSK). “Adjust your treble, get rid of the trouble.”

Wow it’s 23 degrees in March (not in the UK sadly!)

Thanks to Debby H who is away in Tenerife at the moment where it’s a lovely 23 degrees. She sent us some pictures of the garden of where she’s staying at and it looks fantastic. We love this view above.

The bird of paradise/crane flower (strelitza) there looks well established (above) and we did a plant search on the plant below using Plantnet and it came up with agave. If we’re wrong on that, please do let us know but it’s great to see all these brilliant plants on their home turf so to speak and in their full glory. Cheers again Debby!

It looks like spring has sprung

Pic: The pond this morning.

A big thanks to our good mate Gerry Hectic for sending us a mix to celebrate this first day of spring called “A sunshine mix in spring”. It’s a brilliant garden/nature related mix and one to have on when you’re sowing those first vegetable/flower seeds indoors on the potting table (in our case the kitchen sink!)

Here’s the tracklisting:
Intro – Ursula Rucker (& Charles Webster) – Begin Anew (Acapella) Edit)
Alabaster DePlume – That Was My Garden (Edit)
Tunng – Snails
Oscar Jerome – Smell The Daisies feat. anaiis (Radio Edit)
THSA – In Bloom
Late Nite City – Higher Ground
United Freedom Collective – Moonshine
lovetempo – But I Do (Daisybelle Remix)
Gabril Gosse – Breeze ft. Emile Parisein
Shane Sato – Gardenia
Yahushi Ide – A Place In The Sun
Ebi Soda – Bamboo
Evren Furtuna – Little Flower
Ursula Rucker (& Charles Webster) – Begin Anew (Acapella) Edit)
Chaos In The CBD – Midnight In Peckham ft. Isaaz Aesilli
Ursula Rucker (& Charles Webster) – Begin Anew (Acapella) Edit)

So raise a toast to Jean-Michel Jarre if you’re that way inclined or just to the forthcoming season when one day soon you will wake up and not see a frost. Cheers Gerry!

Snails causing trouble again/Dub causing trouble again

 

 

Here’s a lovely remix by Willam Doyle of Snails by Tunng and what a great tune it is for this cold Friday evening. It’s dreamy with some eastern flavours

And  now a mad spoken word dub track out of France by Khoe Wa called Spoken.

 

Have a good weekend and hope that sun comes back soon!

Radio connects us all, yet again

Big shout to The Rhythm Doctor for playing this tune at 33 rpm (it’s supposedly meant to play at 45) this morning on this week’s Waiting Room radio show (the best Monday morning radio show if you like all sorts of eclectic tunes) here.

We’ve never heard it before and as soon as it started up, it sounded very much like a Jah Wobble bassline then there was the inclusion of BBC World Service sign on of the bow bells so we were hooked. It’s the B side of this record here and it’s by Prophetic Four As Dub Assassins and called Pursuit, a wonderful piece of music from 1981 as dub mixed up with radio recordings are all the rage here.

And the next tune played was this below, can it get any better? Tune in to Rhythm Doctor’s Waiting Room on IDA Radio (Tallinn) on a Monday at 9am here.

“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 garden related tune (even if the ground is frozen solid)

 

A big thanks to our good mate Gerry Hectic for sending us this nice bit of laid back soul with love vibes, namechecking the plant also known as Rosa rubiginosa. It’s from Thee Baby Cuffs from San Jose, California. Nice tune Gerry!

Funnily enough we’re not that mad on roses here. Dahlias and vegetables yes but not roses sadly. Can we be converted? Punk or Reggae named rose varieties may make us think again. There’s a Rose Paul McCartney so why not a Rose Jimmy Pursey? If only the gardeners were united…

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)