Category Archives: “Radio connects us all”

Shar-dun-nay from One Tree Hill and discovering Jah Bottle Head

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Walking down into Honor Oak Park today we noticed a grapevine coming out of the scrub and bramble bushes from the bottom of One Tree Hill. We took a closer look and there’s fruit, Chateaux (pronounced chat-ox) Forest Hill anyone? There’s an excellent piece about One Tree Hill if you’re interested here.

And while looking for bottle themed records found out about an artiste called Jah Bottle Head aka Alexander Portious who plays wonderful instrumentals using a comb and bottle or just a bottle head. Whatever he uses, it is a brilliant sound. Here’s his version of Gregory Isaacs’ Love is overdue.

And then we found this one below with a crazy dub, nearly a ton on discogs! We were feeling a bit down earlier and these tunes from the great Alexander Porteous/Jah Bottle Head have really cheered us up. First bottle and comb dub anyone?

And there’s a version of Everything I Own (plus Bottle Head Overdue) at 11.42 on this LP that has some other wonderful tracks on it. “King Tubby’s and Errol T are our engineers this evening”.

Raise your glass to Jah Bottle Head!

Attack of the cyclamen

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Earlier this week just down by the decking we noticed this lovely purple/pink flower and looked up on identify.plantnet.org that it could very much be a cyclamen. God knows how they ended up there as we never planted any tubers or seeds but we’ve just seen that it’s a possibilty that mice or grey squirrels may have transported them there. They look brilliant though and we wouldn’t mind a few more of them. More on the perennial here.

And here’s a couple of cyclamen related tracks:

 

More from a north London garden (and France)

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We’ve just received some pictures from Debby H now we’re into the autumn season. She took a photo of the red robin bush (above) in the south of France just before she left to come back to London. “I took a photo of the red robin bush in the garden there. It has grown new red leaves which I have never seen before at this time of year. It usually happens in spring and sometimes in autumn. It just goes to show that this September has been much cooler and wetter than usual in that part of the world.” She’s got a point.

Back in north London things are still looking great, with the cosmos (above) still thriving. “Not quite so many flowers but pretty good for late September” and she’s right. There’s even some volunteer/self seeded ones growing alongside the path (below). The one we bought at B&Q after being influenced by Debby’s cosmos still has flowers and some new buds.

The sedum which we’re partial to are flowering and the golden rod is looking brilliant too (below).

Excellent stuff Debby. Hope the garden continues to look great even in the next few weeks as we approach the end of the year. Cheers again Debby!

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!

Keeping them peeled in Cincinnati

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A big shout goes out to our good friend Justin Patrick Moore in Cincinnati for sending us a couple of pictures of garden related stuff found on his journeys last weekend. As Justin writes  “On Saturday afternoon, I was walking the dog and what did I spy with my little eye, but a garbage can full of little wooden fence slats. We have long wanted to put some fencing around the compost all the way in the back to keep the dog out of it (she likes to sniff through the old food, no wonder she is so gassy). Here was my golden opportunity!”

“Then on Sunday my wife and I were picking up our daughter and her dogs to take them for a walk in the woods. Out in the neighbors trash on the curb when we pulled up was a box of pots that my wife Audrey immediately scored and threw into the back of the car.”

“Audrey was fond of this band Blanche, and their song “Garbage Picker” and I agree that it’s a real good one.”
“You never know what you’re gonna find, so keep’em peeled!” Cheers Justin!

Big shout going out in the direction of the lakes

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A very big thanks to Rich R for sending us some great pictures from the Lake District over the last couple of weeks. The one above is from Derwent Water in Keswick looking towards Borrowdale. My gosh, now you’re talking! And the one below was taken on his evening stroll, you can’t any better view than that in our opinion.

And below is a very odd moon making an appearance up there, the other night below, crazy stuff. The Lake District looks like one wonderful place Rich and ta for the pics, they are always welcomed.

Also cheers for the confectionary goodies emergency parcel (from the excellent Village Shop, Braithwaite) last week from the Lake District Rich. To say they were appreciated was an understatement! Thanks very much for that.

And the musical accompliment to this post is this week’s episode of the always excellent Rhythm Doctor’s Waiting Room on IDA Radio (Tallinn). A big cheers to RD for playing Madtone’s WP1 at 54 mins in. It’s a wonderful 2 hour show and well worth listening to.

Bobby Crush in dub?

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The other week we were searching through some old singles for an instrumental mix and came across this 7″ that we don’t have much idea about. Both sides of the labels are majorly defaced and the matrix number is MA 011 – A1. We can’t even remember where it was bought from perhaps from a stall under the arches not far from Brixton Recreation Centre in the late 1980’s but who knows.

It’s an strange piano reggae instrumental which we jokingly dubbed at the time “Bobby Crush Special” and that’s meant with no disrepect to the pianist on this record. It just reminded us of the great Mr Crush tinkering the ivories in the 70’s.
Any idea what this tune is and put us out of our misery?

Who said electronica was boring

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A big shout to our good friend actoss the pondJustin Patrick Moore (of the excellent The Radio Phonics Laboratory Book here) for passing on this great piece of electronica. It’s from GLOK / Timothy Clerkin with a lovely track called Empyrean. Starts pretty bonkers and gets even better, it’s a catchy bit of electronic malarkey. No idea what it reminds us of but it is great. Cheers Justin!

Who says dahlias are boring

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Big thanks to Mike G and Julia (Ace photos as usual by the way Julia!) for sending pictures of their wonderful dahlias that have been loving the decent weather up there near Coventry for the last two days. The black dahlia (above) is really something else!

The one above is another favourite of ours, a classic of dahlias! And as for the orange one below… We’ll be buying some tubers for the spring, we will.

And these pictures have given us an excuse to repost up an example of that rare genre called dahlia dub from Madtone called A dahlia state of mind.

And another dahlia themed track this time by Asta Hiroki.

And a final one by Jean-Michel Serres.