Category Archives: Radio Shows

Christmas ain’t that far away

Posted on by
Reply

The festive season ain’t that far away and thanks to searching for a Christmas shortwave mix we found the above the other night. It’s a tune from 1983 by Michael Powell called Christmas Time and has a nice subtle dub.

Today we were at a school’s Christmas fair in Blackheath and witnessed a very young DJ on the wheels of steel. He was playing the obligatory “All I want for xmas is you” etc and inbetween was putting in a few rewinds, taking out the vocal and adding Shaka type syndrum FX. At one point he went into a reggae selection including a tune off the Jacob Miller & Inner Circle Natty Christmas LP. Wow, it’s been a while since we’ve heard that one out, if ever. How the world turns so quickly.

And here’s Basement 5‘s excellent Last White Christmas single but played much slower, recorded for a John Peel session. Dennis Morris, now there’s a forward thinking bloke (anyone remember his other band, Urban Shakedown?)

And this one we heard on pirate radio a good few years ago from Carlene Davis. Yes Christmas is coming…

Who’s been on me harp (without asking)?

Posted on by
Reply

Big shout to Fenny for playing this on last week’s On the Wire. It’s a wonderful bit of music from Cerys Hafana called Helynt Ryfeddol which features a triple harp. It’s a tune that reveals itself with every listen and one that will fit in just fine on the next instalment of HARP from Imaginary stations.

A message from Kyiv (November 2025)

Posted on by
Reply

(Main pic above: “I saw a romantic potato in the store”. Great stuff Wlad!)

The other month we heard from Wlad in Kyiv (here), where he shared some pictures from his friend Sergiy, who has been growing an impressive collection of plants on his balcony—everything started from seeds of whatever he eats, the last time it was photographs of his avocado plant. We’ve got more this month!

The avocados (above) that featured the other month are growing really well with strong stems, big leaves, and looks like they have no intention of slowing down. On top of that, he experimented with the seeds from a pitaya he bought and they’ve started to germinate (below). We had to look up what a pitaya was as we never heard of it before, it’s also known as the strawberry pear or dragon fruit. More on growing those here. Good luck with those, Sergiy!

And to add to those bits of tropical delight, he also decided to try growing pineapples (below).

It’s hard enough as it is to grow stuff like that anyway but at the moment in Kyviv electricity and heating have been unreliable again, so he improvised: he built a small stove on the balcony and added a new battery-powered lamp.

And that is some bulb!

And if you love a bit of circuitry as we do, here’s what’s inside it:

Now that’s what it’s all about, being inventive and making use of what you you can get your hands on. Great stuff Sergiy! Thanks again to Wlad for sending us the pictures, it’s appreciated. Keep safe the both of you, and do send us more updates.

A couple for a sunday

Posted on by
Reply

Here’s something a little out there: a dubbed-out, globe-spanning tune from Free Soul School with Red Dragon. Ideal for those grey Sunday mornings when you’re not quite sure if the garden is calling or if the weather has other plans (clearing out the shed, perhaps?)

And a nice piece from Scientist & Dubiterian called Jah Light Dub from an LP called A Tribute to Augustus Pablo. Lovely stuff!

Bonkers fairground organs in dub

Posted on by
Reply

 

It’s a Thursday night so here’s some tunes. The first one is a lovely bit of deep dub from Submersible (from Singapore via Lithuania) called Teak Forest.

And then a bit of Cumbia rebajada that for some reason reminds us of those fairground steam driven organs. Mad stuff indeed!

 

And here’s the tune at it’s proper speed. What do you reckon is the best? The slow or the fast version. Pretty bonkers stuff either way.

Rose thorns as gramophone needles. Isn’t it?

Posted on by
2

Thanks a million to the one and only Rhythm Doctor for playing One Deck Pete’s “Put a sock in it” mix (originally for Imaginary Station’s KTAB) 11.30 mins in on his “Mojo” It’s a mix up of some fine funk, jazzy stuff, latin, soul, ska and whathaveyou. More on the show here.

Tracklistings:
Jimmy James – Come to me Softly
Off a Jamaican 7″ single on WIRL from 1962 from the man Jimmy James as in Jimmy James and the Vagabonds “I’ll go where the music takes me” fame.

Kouta Katsutaro – Asu ha otachika
Off the wonderful set simply entitled “Kouta Katsutaro” on Death Is Not The End’s Bandcamp (here).

King Stitt/Tommy Mc Cook – Sauvitt
As sampled by One Deck & Popular on “Son of Stitt” (here) and a version of Mongo Santamaria‘s Suavito (here).

Alick Nkhata – Kalindawalo Ni Mfumu
This track is something else! A sort of Rock n Roll stomper, with some lovely harmonies and some horns courtesy of a Coventry Salvation Army brass band sound-alike and someone tinkling those ivories very skillfuly towards the end. It don’t get much better than this. On an LP called Radio Lusaka off the mighty Mississippi Records Bandcamp here.

Marty Robinson – Follow you
From a very battered Coxsone Dodd white 7″ blank and later released on his Port-O-Jam label. M (Martell/Marty) Robinson may have lived in the Coventry/Birmingham area for a bit too. More about the artist here.

Late night saturday vibes (9pm)

Posted on by
Reply

Here’s a couple of electronica bits for the last Saturday of warmish weather before the cold comes in (so it said on the weather forecast on the telly this evening). The first tune was played by Steve Barker on the great On The Wire last week (here) and is called Forma III by Donato Dozzy & Sabla. Wonderful stuff!

 

And above another great one on the Serafin Audio Imprint out of Germany “supporting slow and beautiful music all around the world” from Mark Mywords & JOOR called Belzehuble (Ed Noodle Remix). A nice chilled one that builds as it goes along and ends with a bit of an acid house squelch. A tune for standing on chairs and flailing the arms about to for that long lost rave feeling from a time when going to bed at 10pm was frowned upon!

A message from Kyiv

Posted on by
Reply

As always, it’s good to hear from Wlad (US7IGN) in Ukraine. If you remember, Wlad was featured in a Radio 4 documentary called Lights Out in an episode called Call Signs (here) which was about life as a radio amateur living and working in Kyiv during the Russian invasion. He also has two books out about his experiences and they’re well worth reading if you want an insight on what is life is like out there. More about the books here.

Wlad was telling us that his good friend Sergiy (UT3UFD) is not only growing a banana tree (more on that here) and bonsai but he’s also growing seeds from fruit he eats. The photos above and below are his avocado plants, brilliant stuff. Thanks for keeping us updated, Wlad, and as always, our best wishes to you and Sergiy over there.

We’ve found something on the RHS website about growing avocados plants from seed here. It’s interesting stuff.

We had joy, we had fun, we had a season in the sun

Posted on by
Reply

Last weekend we returned from a week away visiting some great East Sussex locations such as Camber Sands, Eastbourne and Brighton. Weather weren’t too bad (a bit of rain in the morning but usually sunny in the afternoon) but it has seemed to have changed when we got back home. Everything in the garden is now winding down, the tomatoes have their last fruit on them, the cosmos are still going (more on those later) and the giant sunflower (from seed bought off ebay) is doing great, following the sun as usual (more on that here).

We brought in the houseplants that were having a holiday outside, a chilli in a pot which will hopefully survive the winter and be back outside in the garden as they are technically perennials and even a couple of the pelargoniums taken from cuttings from the ones at the local train station. Why not? It’s nice to have a bit of the outside indoors.

Our north London correspondent Debby H has suggested we should get a page together of how people’s cosmos did this year and have a bit of a gallery going on and we think it’s a great idea. If the slugs got at your seedlings earlier on, don’t worry we will repeat it next year but any pictures of your cosmos to one deck pete (at) gee mail dot com please.

Also a massive shout and thanks to Jon Harris from the excellent multi-genre music  show called Coughing Pigeon on Brum Radio here. On the 1st August show they played Madtone Safety Council V BiggaBush‘s Lock your bike at 01.15. The show continues in the usual unusual way with all sorts of great stuff from the dubby to this wonderful tune from Christie Laume called Rouge Rouge, wonderful stuff indeed.

 

As it says on the website “You should approach every Coughing Pigeon show with a degree of both certainty and curiosity about what you will hear. Household names feature alongside the relatively unknown in a quest to create a unique listening experience” and they are right!

An Eric and Ernie bank holiday monday dub connection

Posted on by
4

We’ve just found this tonight, a dub piece by the great Scientist & Alicia Previn called Scientist Spacewalk. Super strings dub on the answer rhythm. More on the collab here.

 

And it’s nothing to do with the strings on 1970’s UK reggae releases…