Here’s a nice warped sounding (like when you get a off-centre jamaican pressing from the days of old) 80 bpm tune from Dentist called Kiss to warm you up for a day where it may be 20 degrees Celcius over here in SE23. Crazy weather eh?
Further to our last post about interval signals, cheers to our mate John F for sending this interval signal over on Facebook from Radio Tirana, Albania (above). Simple but effective like all the best interval signals, and we’ve just found out it was a trumpet version of a tune called With Pickaxe and Rifle. Blimmin’ eck!
That got us thinking of another old one, this time from Radio Prague, which was recorded off the shortwave and put on an LP by Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark. Here’s a live version with an orchestra, shortwave noise and a vocal through a megaphone.
Our friend Kit G5KIT from Bristol got in touch and mentioned this excellent one from Radio Berlin International “The one I heard most as a kid”. Cheers Kit, now that is a classic!
And a favourite tune of ours from years ago that had an interval signal sampled on it, was Rephazer‘s Interval #1 from his excellent Interval Signals set here. Here’s a Madtone re-edit of the track with a Jasmine Tutum vocal over the start as a bit of an exclusive for a shortwave mix a few years ago.
Through researching this post we have rediscovered a clip of the late great Holger Czukay listening into shortwave radio from1984. It don’t sound like any intervals signals are contained here but it’s such a good clip it has to be aired again.
There’s a great collection of interval signals here from the SWLing Post article and on this classic site here. Have you a favourite interval signal? Do send them to us here.
Just to end, here’s a lovely classic musical box/ice cream van type interval signal from HSW Bangkok Meteorological Radio (supposedly a version of “Wandering The Plains” from the Nintendo game Super Mario World). Big shout to all interval signal fans all around the globe!
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.
A big thanks to Spike from Morschen43 for sharing more photos of his garden in Le Puy-en-Velay, France. As you can see, looking at the pictures (aboove and below), a hell of a lot work has been done over the last couple of weeks and there’s a nice new fence up as well. Sterling work Spike!
If you can remember what the garden was like (below) before the pickaxe, fork and shovel were applied and when it was full of couch grass and dandelions (here), all we can say is “Wow!”
And there’s been a massive bit of pruning on his Granny Smith’s apple tree (below)). Spike was gifted the tree by his grandmother for his 13th birthday and it’s now 35 years old. Here are the before and after pictures of the big cut. It does look a bit severe, but it did need it and we are sure it will grow back fine.
We found out the gardening runs in the family as Spike’s father was a market gardener and swore by gardening using the moon. It’s been a long time since we used the Biodynamic method and Maria Thun‘s Book here but perhaps we will revisit it and give it a try. What have we got to lose?
Cheers for the great pictures of your garden again Spike and keep them coming!
And thanks a million to Spike for playing Jasmine & Madtone’s “Open up your heart” at 50.08 minutes in on his Vampire Freaks radio show here (N°365) here.
An excellent dub from Gregory Morris of Johnny Osbourne’s/Makka B‘s Cease Fire. A great tune for a sunny spring Saturday. And here’s the vocal.
We’re just researching another shortwave radio mix and remembered this wonderful track from Triptica out of Alajuela, Costa Rica called Mysterious Radio Signals. This was recorded off air from One Deck Pete’s “Interval Signal Tea break” mix which was broadcast on KMTS on December 17th 2000 at 2300 UTC on 9670 kHz. We do love the track and its cut and paste video.
This weekend there was a edition of Skybird Radio International featuring DJ Frederick and Justin Patrick Moore, who journeyed all over this globe of ours in an all genre style. You don’t need a passport, or carry over-packed suitcases to go on this international musical coach trip as itwas transmitted over those shortwaves and now on Mixcloud:
At 3.38 there’s a mix from One Deck Pete and here’s the tracks:
Madtone – Diamonds in the sky (excerpt – full track here)
Les Maîtres Fous – La Mort d’Icare
Aselefech Ashine & Getenesh Kebret – Wegenne
Narcy – Nehaya
Wilmoth Houdini – Blow Wind Blow
Unknown Track off “Cantos Oscuros” from Little Axe Records
And Justin Patrick Moore played this obscure one from Jodie Foster, released in that heady year of Punk, 1977.
Nice to hear from Kit, G5KIT this afternoon, he emailed “Spring has officially arrived over here in Bristol. Two random daffodils have sprouted in the garden!” Great stuff.
So, in celebration of this here’s a great mix he sent us, and we’ve never heard any of these tunes before. Cheers Kit, it’s great to hear mixes from our gardening friends. Keep them coming!
Track listings:
Spinal Tap – (Listen To The) Flower People
The Hobbits – Daffodil Days
The Syn – Flower man
Luscious Jackson – Water Your Garden
Derek and the Dominos – Keep On Growing
Thanks to Spike from Morschen43 for sharing photos of the back-breaking work he’s undertaken in his garden in Le Puy-en-Velay in France this week (more on his great garden here). Seeing the couch grass dandelions and the pickaxe, fork and shovel, we’re breaking into a sweat just looking at the pictures. As he told us “The most used tools used in the work were a fork and a spade”. You’ll all agree he’s done a great job to say the least after looking at the “after” pictures at the bottom of this blog post!
Cheers for keeping us updated and we’d love to see how the garden progresses throughout the year. You’ve done well this week Spike and we are never going to complain again about working hard in our garden looking at these pictures!
Weeds up to me knees 