Mead from down under

Big shout to our good friend Paul Greenstein once of the East Dulwich parish, now of Melbourne, Australia (we last featured his Bees and their honey here) and also a Madtone musical collaborator as Audiovert. Well you may remember he mentioned they were making some Mead. Well here’s a pic of how they are getting on, flavours include rhubarb, soft fruit and orange & spices. Looks great Paul! Keep sending us those pictures!

And the best Monday morning radio show goes to…

 

A big shout to our good friend The Rhythm Doctor for playing two Madtone tracks on his radio show this week (NC-ND and Message from Madtone). As we keep saying, if you want to hear a great Monday morning radio show which plays all sorts from Jazz, Funk, Dub and Downbeat you should tune into The Rhythm Doctor’s Waiting Room on a Monday morning from 9-11am (UK Time) on IDA Radio, Tallinn. 

Both tracks featured are available on the Madtone Bandcamp here.

 

And here’s a version of a Message from Madtone from another good friend Jasmine Tutum.

Oi mate, that’s my Egg Nog okay?

A Happy Boxing day to all! Here’s the audio of The imaginary Stations Winter Holiday Special which was broadcast via Shortwave Gold on Christmas Eve on those shortwaves. There’s a load of festive tunes throughout the hour plus “A holday Mix” from One Deck Pete at 40.38 minutes in. Here’s the tracklistings:

Forgotten employee – The Backroom Tapes
Snow Palms – Evening Rain Gardens (Excerpt)
Kohei Yoshi – Cold Ice Dub
Frost – Munch RIP (instrumental)
Bodyswitch – Gee Whiz it’s Christmas
Jacob Miller/Ray I – Deck The Halls
Kibble – Warm Fireplace (Excerpt)

 

 

Tune in here for more solstice vibes

If like us you can’t be at Stonehenge this Friday 22nd December for the Solstice sunrise, you can tune in via the services of youtube here while you sit at home having some toast and lime marmalade or a bowl of All Bran in your PJ’s. Tune in, drop out then drop off (for a bit of a kip).

A tune for bin-night’s eve

 

Now here’s a tune that is getting under our skin. It’s from an artist called Paper Sailboat from Ottawa, Ontario and it’s called Numbers Stations. We can’t hear any recognisable number stations samples (but remember we are getting a bit mutton jeff in our old age) and this one really get under your skin, it’s nearly 6 minutes long but you wouldn’t think so. One for turning up loud knowing that the binmen will be here at the crack of dawn.

Gone are the days when the binmen in Coventry would knock your front door on Christmas Eve holding a bin bag saying “Merry Christmas from the Coventry Binmen”. It was like an adult version of trick or treating where if you didn’t comply, your bins wouldn’t be emptied for a couple of weeks, allegedlly. It’s a whole different world now…

Festive tune of the week

This excellent tune was found when compiling a shortwave mix, a great spoof of The Normal on a festive tip. We hope even Daniel Miller would have a chuckle at it while he’s listening to it around the open fire.

It’s just under a foot ain’t it?

Here’s the audio of yesterday’s imaginary stations show via Shortwave Gold called WS10S, a tribute to the 10 inch single. We’re not just talking 78’s we’re talking all speeds spread over a good few genres. It’s a great show and well worth listening to in its non-ionosphere reflected glory in stereo.

Also at 26.33 minutes in there is a mix from One Deck Pete called unsurprisingly “A ten inch mix”. Here’s the tracklisting:
Jasmine & Madtone – What is man? Dubplate
Zap Pow – Broken Contract
Ellis Island Sound – Republica Evescarra (played at 45rpm)
Marc Collin – Les Kidnappeurs (Main Theme) (Revisited By Jackson)
Nicola Conte – Jazz Pour Dadine (The Dining Rooms Remix)

So chill out and tune into last nights’s show without actually tuning in, if that makes sense.

Bass and drum plus some gurgling and groaning

Last night we found a wonderful track on Bill Laswell’s Trojan Dub Massive Volume One compilation on Bandcamp. It’s a version of Delroy Wilson’s Have Some Mercy (first heard on the John Peel show many years ago) and George Faith’s To be a Lover called Lovers Skank (Spanglers Clap) by The Upsetters. Crazy minimal dub with all sounds of strange things over the top.

This track also appears on the vintage King Tubby’s Hometown Hi-Fi recording from Jamaica in 1975 (Thanks to Who Cork The Dance for cleaning the tape up) at 11 minutes in. As the great U-Roy says while the track is playing “It’s kind of scratchy, very very scratchy but the brother asked to play…” Tune!

Here’s an excellent interview with the great U-Roy where he talks about King Tubby’s electronics wizardry at 11 minutes in.

Baby, it’s cold outside

It’s cold as cold here and it’s time for a good tune to warm up those slippered feet. It’s the original version of Ijahman Levi‘s classic Jah Heavy Load from the grand old year of 1976.

We can’t find the dub of this but the tune in its full glory is played at 2 minutes in on this “recorded straight off the Medium Wave in glorious mono” of John Lydon on BRMB (261 Metres) in interview with Robin Valk from 1979 complete with a european station breaking through in the background with really adds to the recording. A great listen by the way.

Here’s a later released version of the tune with a excellent dub which we really want here. Keep warm out there!