One for the Bank Holiday

Big thanks to Jesse Yuen for his last post here and for sending us this tune recommendation. As he says in his own words: “My last few months have been soundtracked by this release from Cousin. Downtempo, dubwise, low-end and percussive!” Sounds great and well up our street Jesse!

Friday night polka style

Thanks to the catalogue of the wonderful Canary Records out Baltimore, Maryland for the Night Owl Polka from the Frank Gutowski Trio. You’ll be clapping along and shouting “Hey” in the right places before you know it as it don’t get much better than this. Do check the rest of their releases for some very interesting tune-age.

Crimson and clover

Here’s the audio from last night’s Imaginary Stations show on WRMI, a tribute to all things Hippie/Hippy called WHPY. Tune in and turn on to some mind blowing sounds from the Imaginary Stations crew including at 18.50 a mix from One Deck Pete called “For all the wallies out there”. Here’s the tracklist:
Can – Vitamin C
Bongo Isaac, Itekted, Dread I Benji – Perfect Love and Peace Dub 1
Emma-Jean Thackray – Ley Lines
Richie Havens – Going back to my roots

Another page in your diary

A couple of events to stick in the old diary. The first is a Seed Swap in the Corbett Community Library, Torridon Road, Catford, London SE6 1RQ on Saturday 25th March 2023 from 10am to 3pm. More on the event here. Thanks to @LewishamGardens for alerting us to this!

And on WRMI this Sunday 5th March 2023 Imaginary Stations presents a KBIN mix up special with WSTL versus WELK. Expect some whistling, yodelling and squeezebox classics at 2300 UTC on 9395 kHz. Get that accordion at the ready!

 

Ain’t it sprung yet?

Sunday was lovely for a spot of gardening after a rather wet and windy Saturday. The lawn was cut, the beds got a bit of a tidy up and we even got caried away sowing some borage under the tree. It’ll probably won’t be the best spot for them and God knows if they’ll even germinate as it may have been sunny Sunday but who knows what the future weather has got in store for us.

And we even had a peek under the plastic covered raised bed and the elephant garlic is coming on a bit and the foxgloves that were once plugs have even survived after a bit of a change from the warmth of the kitchen windowsill to outside in the freezing cold.

Come Monday morning it was back to the cold weather again and we went down to the compost heap to stick a couple of tea bags in and to give it a turn. What was well suprising was how much heat was generated in the heap even overnight with the grass clippings, there was even a bit of steam coming off the heap after forking it over. Covering the heap with cardboard certainly keeps the heat in. Let’s hope we can get out there again this Sunday.

And here’s a wonderful tune for a Wednesday night from Les Mamans du Congo & Rrobin called Loango Weaver. It’s from last years set “A Guide to the Birdsong of Western Africa by Various Artists” well worth checking out here.

The 45th Parallel Déjà Vu

The above programme was supposed to be aired last Sunday but WRMI was down all evening last week on 9395kHz. Fingers crossed the Imaginary Stations 45th Parallel Midwinter Broadcast will now be on in a few hours time (Sunday 19th February 2023) on 9395 kHz at 2300 hrs UTC. At 20 minutes in One Deck Pete presents “A 45 mix” with tracks from Borealism, Boca 45, mndbd, Jah Wobble and Mad Professor. Tune in and get on that circle of lattitude and enjoy! If you haven’t a shortwave radio do tune in on this online SDR here on 9395kHz on AM mode.

An alternative to Michael McIntyre and some morse dub

Here’s a couple of mad ones for a Saturday night. The first is a Intiche remix of a tune from lagartijeando out of Argentina called Antiguos Deuños De Las Flechas. To say it’s a bit out there is an understatement, great graphics too! We’ve just had a quick look into Intiche, originally from Argentina and now resident In Berlin who makes some mad chilled out tunes. Worth taking a look into too if you like the above type of gear.

And here’s Mad Professor with Psychic Vampire with some morse code in it for good measure! Dubbed out CW, we’re always up for that!

And if that isn’t enough, here’s another example from ECHO BEACH Lifefidelity. New genre alert?

Monday night serious listening

Thanks to our good friend Marc B for letting us know today about this great show featuring the late great Penny Reel which starts with a couple of old doo-wop tunes with their reggae counterparts and then into some very choice tunes, a show well worth listening to!

There’s another show up on Weeds, posted not long after his passing which featured Penny with Paul Bradshaw here. Below is one of the tunes he played on it, The Lord’s Army by Hy Mann that we’d previously never heard of. The tune sounded like it may have been recorded at the same session as a personal favourite of ours Follow You by M (Martell?) Robinson. This music lark never fails to disappoint, opening a can of worms also comes to mind.

STOP PRESS And talking of opening cans of worms, as if by magic we have been directed to a Jamaican born singer called Martel Robinson who used to sing in working mens clubs in Coventry and Birmingham and release records under M Robinson. Same chap? We do hope so!

STOP PRESS JULY 2023: Also known as Ray Martell!

https://www.discogs.com/artist/2205400-Martel-Robinson

DJ Spycatcher

Last night the latest edition of Imaginary Stations KSPY took to the ionosphere thanks to WRMI. Thanks to all agents who tuned in to the spy-laden broadcast via the shortwaves but if you didn’t, the studio audio is now up on mixcloud (below).

At 7 minutes in is a mix from One Deck Pete.
Here’s the tracks:
Zeb – The Spy from Cairo – Qanun in Dub
Top Secret…shhh – Winding the time
Edwin Starr – Agent Double O Soul
Secret Nuclear – Coded messages
Ax Martz – Mensaje en codigo (Coded Message)
Nat King Cole – The Blue Danube (Excerpt)

Enjoy the hour of all things KSPY but please don’t forgot to look over your shoulder as you never know who’s watching.

A frosty reception this morning

It’s always the way, awoke to a frost this morning (above). Typically a couple of days after planting the elephant garlic out under a thick mat of leaf mulch. We reckon we may have lost them but let’s see if they survive. That’s the trouble with gardening, just like life you get good days and bad days. We’ll update you about the garlic.

At lunchtime we got some plug plants through the post, some White Foxgloves off ebay (below). Expertly packed or what? They’re not going out just yet even though it said on the supplied notes they can be overwintered in a cold frame. Possibly, but they’re staying on the windowsill for a couple of days before we can knock up some sort of cold frame-like structure with protection outside in the garden. We’re talking an old piece of glass on some bricks or something, it won’t be pretty but it may work. Trouble is we don’t want the plugs to get too comfortable indoors even though they’ve probably come from a greenhouse before being posted.

And below is the latest episode of Imaginary Stations, KBUS which was broadcast last night on WRMI (also home to This is a music show and Radio Northern Europe International). The show’s theme is travel which features all sorts of eclectic goodness as ever featuring this tune below by Wesley Willis “Harmony Joy Bus Ride” which we’ve never heard of, shamefully we’ve never of the artist before either. We must do some more research on Wesley Willis as he was an interesting fellow by all accounts.

And at 43 minutes in on the show is One Deck Pete’s “Where’s me travel card?” mix.
Here’s the tracks:
John Harvey – Automated Announcement, Platform 7, Shewsbury station
Ceramic The Band – Tickets, Please
Tabasco Driver meets Delroy Wilson in Dub
N&L – Metropolis
Inteus – Angry Bus Driver
Phil Pratt – Safe Travel
kK4P M3TR0 – NEXT STOP – Riverside – Town Creek

Fingers crossed those garlic bulbs survive!