Here’s a wonderful tune found while looking for music for a forthcoming shortwave mix and again it is from the ever-wonderful Mississippi Records here. From the lovely cover of the LP with a beaming Alick Nkhata behind a radio mike in a room full of records, this tune Kalindawalo Ni Mfumu has a sort of a rock n roll feel, lovely harmonies with even a brass band (it sure sounds like it) and lovely tinkering of the ivories thrown in towards the end. This tune will not fail to make you smile!
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!
Heard on this week’s Rhythm Doctor’s Waiting Room (here), here’s a wonderful bit of classical ambience. It’s by Steven Legget & Laura Reid and it’s called Low and it’s excellent stuff and one to wind down to after the bins have been put out and you’re sitting pondering “Was it recycling and general refuse or was it just recycling tonight?”
Here’s a good refuse tip, don’t feel left out after a bank holiday. Bin collection is usually a day later so put your feet up and wait another 24 hours before dragging those bins down the drive/path knowing that you “know the (wheely bin) score”. Remember every part of the world over has a bin night. What night is yours? Do send us your pictures of your dustbins!
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…
We can’t get enough of this tune since first hearing this. It’s released on the great Serafin Audio Imprint and as they say on the tin (labelled Bandcamp), “We are a fine little Imprint from Germany supporting slow and beautiful music all around the world” and they don’t half! This one is from Laaar and it’s called A familiar feeling and by the way, all of the EP it’s from is worth listening to!
And if you like tunes that sample shortwave radio like we do, here’s one by Hali Palombo called Contestia using a vocal sample off the Shannon Volmet, more about what a Volmet is here.
A big thanks to Debby H for starting this current wave of cosmos appreciation here at Weeds. Hers are presently looking great in situ (above).
We know a couple of us had some problems with slugs eating some of our seedlings but that’s not going to stop us trying again next year. We started off a good few but the only ones that survived were the plants under the dying cherry tree which are giving us a few nice blooms at the moment (above).
And above and below are from Mike & Julia‘s garden near Coventry. Great stuff!
Gardening is about having a go and if the slugs got your seedlings this year it doesn’t mean they will next year. Out with the beer traps and the copper tape and your other favourite anti-slug tricks and see what happens. Another good thing about the old horticulture is the practice of swopping and passing on plants and seeds. Keep the old circle going around! Cheers again to Debby H!
While doing another mix for the shortwaves we found this excellent track from out of stockport from J-Walk called Winter Moon Rendezvous. It’s a nice mellow track for a Saturday night.
And the other night we (re)discovered the cassette label PetPets’ TAPES out of France. There’s some wonderful stuff on their Bandcamp page here and the releases are as cheap as chips. Here’s a couple of tunes from a tape called Majaal – Songs of Naam.
We’ve just looked at that John Peel auction that Gerry Hectic alerted us to last month (original post here), that had a couple of lots which contained our fanzine Ded Yampy. Looks like they’ve been sold! £190 and £140 (above) but that’s nothing compared to a John Lennon signed LP for £10,000 (below). Who’s got the money for that?
We’re now thinking of getting into the auction game ourselves and our first “lot” will be the 30 or so reggae 12″ers we found at a south London market last year. We were so excited with finding them we put on a poker face while flicking through the boxes as not to alert the seller/other record hunters that we had found some gems (or so we thought).
We omitted to check the condition of the records at the time as we were so excited. On the bus home we took a look and were shocked to see how bad they were. We learned a lesson that day, check the condition! Even a good clean didn’t help (above).
That is nothing compared to the time we popped out for a pint of milk and came back 2 hours later relieved of £20 but the owner of some great rare old reggae sevens procured from the back of a Peckham nail bar that once been a record shop. Our excuse this time was that the lighting was dim in there so didn’t look too hard at the actual vinyl. More likely our eyes and brain were on dimmed if you have a look at this one from The Wailers (above). There’s even a phone number scratched into the other side. Check before you buy, excitement or no excitement!
It has finally come, the day the first cosmos flower appeared. We may have lost a few plants to the slugs earlier on this year but the few we started off in pots and are now undernearth the dead cherry tree have got buds on them and this afternoon one actually opened. Cheers to Debby H for starting us off on this cosmos journey. Anyone else got any cosmos pictures to post up here? One deck pete at gee mail dot com if so.
And today also saw one of the cardoons showing their first purple dyed spikey top with more growth to come in time we hope. The bee on it seems happy enough.
And for a Saturday evening here’s a couple of excellent tunes, the first being from Cantoma (AKA Phil Mison The balearic fare dodger) called Light Before – Ambient Outro. It’s one piece of ambient chillout to end the day with!
And a lovely bit of dub from a set called Mid City Dub Encounters Vol.1 by Irie One and Lord Sekou on Jah Thunder Records and this track is called Kalimba Dub.
Here’s an excellent radio programme featuring those Maunsell delights Shivering Sands. It’s a 24 minute great listen so tune in here for a very interesting listen. Thanks to the The Maunsell Seaforts Appreciation Goup on Facebook for posting this up!
And when we put Maunsell dub into Bandcamp it came up with this, a great version of United Melody by Addis Pablo no less.
Weeds up to me knees 