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 do love a public information film and here’s a track with some great samples from them in it. It’s by Villareal and it’s called Public Information Film (Filth Monkey Unreleased Album Recording 2000).
A big thanks again to DJ Frederick and all the Imaginary Stations Crew for broadcasting the Downbeat on Shortwave 2 show over the weekend via those radio transmitters at Shortwaveradio.de
The show featured a hands across the world collaboration between Jesse Yuen from Perth, Australia and One Deck Pete from Catford Village, UK who played two 15 minute mixes each in a back to back style featuring some downtempo business to slow things down in our life.
We’ve posted up two recordings of the show. The first is the stereo studio recording and below that, the off-air recording via the shortwaves recorded in glorious mono. There’s added texture to the show thanks to signals bouncing off the ionosphere/groundwave propagation and someone next door switching on their toaster.
Here’s a wonderful tune and wonderful video too from Stereolab with their radio and TV related tune, Aerial Troubles. Dance around the coax to this as it’s a good one!
We’ve had this in the garden before and God only knows how it actually got there (have they self seeded themselves or are they the fruits of our anarchistic “throw them anywhere” sowing method) but it’s the wonderful quaking-grass. It’s only a small plant but is great close up and we’ve just found out that the seeds are good source of food for the birds.
We’ve got a flower on our courgette plant we sowed in a pot when we thought it may be a bit late so it’s always worth trying! How’s people’s gardens going? Do send some pictures please!
Also this weekend on the shortwave bands Imaginary Stations bring you Starship Skybird. The show is broadcast on Saturday 7th June 2025 at 1100 hrs UTC on 6160 kHz and then again on Sunday 8th June 2025 at 0900/1300 hrs UTC on 6160 kHz and at 2000 UTC on 3975 kHz and 6160 kHz (via the services of Shortwave Gold).
Start the countdown to this weekend when you can strap yourself in for a trip of a lifetime. Tune in, make yourself a cosmic cocktail if that’s your thing and enjoy the sounds of space.
There’s all sorts of space madness with music (and some great jingles) you may have never heard before from DJ Frederick and Justin Patrick Moore and at 6.15 mins in there’s One Deck Pete presents a ride into space on a 60+travelcard mix. Grab yourself a shortwave radio or tune in via here.
Cheers to our good friend across the pond Justin Patrick Moore for sending us a picture of the mullein plant in his garden. Justin mentioned “I let the plants grow when they pop up, even though some consider them a weed. People smoke the leaves for lung issues and make an oil from the flowers for ear infections. Its a medicinal weed, that in its second year, goes up past the knees!”
And thanks to Justin for forwarding a great tune named after said plant from MF Doom. Cheers Justin!
The other Saturday we spend most of the day at an event at the Crystal Palace Subway. You’ve a good few stairs to traverse and have to squint until your eyes gets used to the light when you get into the covered area but it’s an interesting place to view. More on the venue on a great YouTube clip here.
On nipping back and forth from said event (to get supplies of bacon sarnies and cups of tea that had to be consumed outside as the organisers didn’t want the subway’s floor to be discoloured) we spotted a plant stall set up outside the park belonging to a local community gardening group. The selection was wide and the prices cheap so what more do you want? We spent a tenner and got a good handful of plants.
All the pots came with details of the plant printed on paper sellotaped to the side, so we were in no doubt what they initially were until we took them out of said container. We’ve now forgotten three apart from a large lily and another
The first one (above) is not a dock but is very close to one (the new garden volunteers regularly mistaken it for the weed) and supposedly sends up long flowers or seed heads perhaps? Any ideas what we purchased or have we been diddled into buying a dock for a quid?
The next we wrote on a label but the only pen on hand was a silver thick marker and we can’t really make it out properly (could it be Sweet Rocket?) We are sure when we first read up about the plant it said it was invasive, so we just left it in the pot.
The last one (above) Plant.id reckons this is Atriplex hortensis aka Purple Mountain Spinach. We recall being told something like that (French Spinach perhaps?) at the time but not 100% on that. We think we’ve done well for a tenner but just unsure about the names on the last three. Any thoughts on what they are would be appreciated.
Here’s an excellent chilled out tune we found last week on our search for “space” tracks, that is perfect for a Sunday morning. It’s by Space Afrika out of Manchester and called Self.
And another track called Bobbies Reprise (feat. bobbieorkid) from Rainy Miller x Space Afrika. Well worth investigating further.
STOP PRESS! Thanks to all invoved in the excellent Go Gardening Facebook group (Including Graham P, Jane H and Jackie M) for IDing a couple of the plants above.
Plant picture 1 – The dock looking thing is Persicaria. “It’s a perennial & once established spreads quite rapidly. It sends up tall..usually red…flower stalks with small flowers.”
Plant picture 2 – Sweet rocket (Hesperis matronalis) “it’s a biennial or short lived perennial.”
We were compiling some tunes for a space leaning shortwave mix and came across this belter of a dub. It’s off a set called Moon Dub EP by Invadread. The track is by Baodub and called Dub of the moon and it is one catchy dub and has a touch of the Keith Levine’s in there and a bit of a Doctor Who vibe somewhere. A tune!
Another moon themed tune…
As the lyrics go “Neil Armstrong the first human on the Moon and the Pan Afros the first men to play the tune”. Brilliant!
Cheers to Kit, G0JPS presently on a boat on the Grand Union Canal who told us earlier he was listening to the “Alt Universe Top 40” on 9670 kHz on his XHDATA D-808 portable. As he reported: “Lovely reception. Hot Butter’s seminal track, “Popcorn” is currently playing.” Brilliant stuff Kit!
Then around the same time we heard from Debby H who picked up a couple of pepper plants from a few streets away (there was a mixture of plants on a wall with a sign “please take me” on it) and guess what one of the varieties was called? Marconi Red. Radio (and gardening) connects us all!
At 2.58 above is a tune that made us smile this week while putting together another shortwave mix for Imaginary Stations. It’s called Beatles and the MBE from Lord Short Shirt & The Silhouettes and even if you’re not keen on the Fab Four this’ll cheer you up.
Weeds up to me knees 