Category Archives: Sounds from the south

We’ll take you where the sun shines

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Cheers to Maz and Marc from sending us some great pictures from their recent holiday in France. These photos are from in and about Saint-Aubin-de-Cadelech, south of Bergerac.

Just like when you receive postcards a few days after people come back off their holidays, we are following the tradition here. It was very hot over there and one day reached to 43 degrees C in the shade, wow!

Some Mirabelle de Nancy plums that taste very very sweet (above) and some sumac (below).

And a smoketree (below) that we have just read, that is related to sumac.


Here’s a wonderful willow shelter and below is the shady view from inside (looking down to the treeline by the River Dropt), what a great idea!

Big thanks to Maz and Marc for these great pictures! Hope you both had a great holiday.

Tunes to keep you cool in this heatwave

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Here’s a lovely bit of reggae to keep you cool in this mad heatwave we are experiencing in London now. The first is from The Disciples and it is called Living by The Sea mix 3 (previously unreleased) and a wonderful bit of dub. It’s got those keyboard stabs that remind us of Gregory Isaacs and his Rumours tune.

And talking of Gregory, here’s a great one from years ago featuring an extended “jam” of the “Rock On rhythm.” Keep a listen out for a couple of Skybird Jams radio shows coming soon with extended mixes, tracks over 8 minutes long and “Jam” bands aka “Music to increase your attention span”.

More Downbeat on Shortwave this weekend!

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This weekend Imaginary Stations bring you the fourth episode in the Downbeat on Shortwave series with Jesse Yuen (from Perth, Australia) and One Deck Pete (from Catford Village, Londres).

Jesse and Pete bring you two 15-minute downtempo mixes each over the hour-long show. Expect some ambient, dub, reggae and downtempo tunes for a chilled-out weekend.

The show is broadcast on Saturday 13th June at 1100 hrs UTC (12 noon in the UK) on 6160 kHz and then again on Sunday 14th June at 1300 hrs UTC (2pm in the UK) on 6160 kHz and 2000 hrs UTC (9pm in the UK) on 3975 kHz/6160 kHz. Thanks to the great Shortwave Gold for beaming those radio waves skywards.

Don’t worry if you haven’t a shortwave radio you can tune in via an online Software Defined Radio here (pre-tuned into 6160 kHz). Just plug in at the right time(s) and experience that shortwave mono sound with all the fading and cross channel interference live.

Here’s the older shows for your listening pleasure!

Programme 1

Programme 2

Programme 3

More sinks of the Belfast variety

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Thanks to Gerry Hectic for sending us a picture of his first flowering lily in his pond complete with Belfast sink in the corner filled with some water plants. Lovely flower and that water looks a lot clearer that our pond at the present moment too Gerry!

Communications from Dorset

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Cheers to Alan in South East Dorset for getting in touch last week and sending us a report of his allotment activities. We initially heard from him last year when he passed on that valuable tip about adding some home-made compost to peat-free compost “to help germination and early growth”. As he added when he reminded us “I still mix in garden compost and the growth of seedlings this year have been mostly excellent, much better than previously.” We’re with you on that Alan, we now use it all the time.

He kindly sent us a couple of pictures of the spuds (a variety called Lady Christl, first earlies) doing well in tubs (24 of them in total!) The reason he puts them in tubs is “having learnt my lesson that you can never dig up all of them if they are in the ground and end with volunteers everywhere the following year.” That is so true, no matter how careful you are with taking potatoes out, they’ll always be one sneakily left in.

“I hadn’t heard of the variety before last year, but it gives really good new potatoes. Personally, I don’t bother with other types, but first earlies are really much nicer fresh from the ground.” “We don’t store them, just tip out a tub the day that we intend to eat them.” Brilliant, you can’t beat the taste of freshly pulled-up potatoes.

“You will also see behind them my polytunnel, which has tomatoes, cucumbers,
aubergines and peppers all coming on in small pots. Potted up a few
tomatoes this morning into tubs. Also, a few purple beans, peas, beetroot
and dahlias in there too.” “There is also my fruit cage (still a work-in-progress) with 2 grapevines and some blueberries in the large red-brown tubs.”

And finally, he sent us this great tune by Dub Syndicate featuring the late great Lee Scratch Perry with the dub master Adrian Sherwood at the controls. Brilliant, cheers for sending the report Alan and do keep us updated as the season keeps on and send us more tunes too.

A delayed report from Bristol

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We also had a recent report from Kit, G5KIT in Bristol which we’ve just got around to posting up now. He’s cleared out the cleavers from his herb corner above (which is well up our street!) and as he told us “surprisingly, the parsley is thriving underneath. The anti-cat sticks seem to still be doing their thing, too.” “I’ll probably pop some basil, mint and thyme in there around the parsley, just so there’s something vigorous to fight the weeds off.”

That’s a great idea and we do know mint can be a bit vigorous at times, but we’ve got a couple of mint plants in the garden that are still in their original pots (buried into the soil) that helps to keep them from spreading too much.

Cheers Kit, do keep letting us know how things are doing!

It all seems to have started up north

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A big thanks to Debby H. for sharing an update from her north London garden! While we sowed ours directly outside this year and are still waiting for them to pop up, Debby’s cosmos are already starting to flower even though the plants are still small (see her photos above).

It’s great to see that her seed potatoes are finally breaking through. There’s some really healthy growth on them already.

Elsewhere in the garden, the rhododendron is also blooming beautifully.

As she mentioned “The bluebells are still lovely, although unfortunately not the native ones” (above).

The garden is looking great at this time of year as well, what’s it going to look like later this year? We can’t wait to find out, keeping sending us the updates Debby!

It don’t get better than this (again)

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We have no idea how to describe this excellent track, it’s absolutely bonkers and something else! It’s by Lifetime Pineapple and called Double Busfare and what a wonderful graphic too.

A couple for a sunday

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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!

Guy Fawkes loved the reggae, loved the reggae

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On this Guys Fawkes night, a big shout goes out to our good friend Marc B for sending us the musical recommendation above, an NTS show from Dan Jagger Ball on Mixcloud. There’s some wonderful stuff on it including the first tune from the great Roy Shirley with the wonderful Music is the key on the Amalgamated label here.

On hearing Roy Shirley, we remembered a TV show in the Aquarius series from 1976 about British reggae (below) which we taped thanks to Max Betamax when it was reshown in the mid 1980’s. The great Roy Shirley is in it (with Rico on trombone) alongside other reggae greats including Aswad, The Cimarrons, Sir Coxson, Matumbi, Tito Simon, Ijahman Levi with an stripped down version of Jah Heavy Load, Geoffrey Chung, a star jumper or two and also Nicky Thomas who gives a sterling performance of What love is at 20 mins in at Chalk Farm studios (next door to The Belmont that must have seen a few reggae artists having a pint there) and ends with a clip from Count Suckle‘s legendary Q club in Paddington.

It’s a show well worth watching if you love a bit of time travelling and good music. Reggae, you can’t beat it!