Category Archives: Wildlife

More bass, more drums and more harp please

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Over the years we’ve discovered some great reggae tunes featuring some strange bed fellows instrument-wise including (above) this bit of banjo dub by Andy’s All-Stars called Banjo Serenade (Cheers Steve Barker for playing this). And it was only a couple of weeks we found out about the great  Alex Porteus/Jah Bottle Head (actually caught in action using said instrument at 18 seconds in and a few more times below).

And tonight we have found some harp dub. The below is from Lo Free Meditation, T-key Free Meditation, Ha Lan Leduc and called Hola Harp part 1. Wonderful stuff!

Dub dreams can come true

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While going through some tracks this evening we found this excellent dub from Leo James called Daydream In Dub featuring one Ed Gooden.

It’s brilliant stuff and doesn’t even feel like the seven minute track it is. When we saw the length of the track we initially thought “that’s going to go on for a bit” but the truth of the matter is it could go on for much longer for us here. Wonderful stuff from way back in 2016. The 12″ is £34 on discogs which is a bit out of our reach but a super tune anyway.

And another slumber related tune, this time from the great “Sleepy” himself Horace Andy with Krak in Dub from Paris with “Stop borrow dub”. It’s on an uptempo tip and one to be played loud!

So nice the intstrumental has got to be played too!

Shar-dun-nay from One Tree Hill and discovering Jah Bottle Head

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Walking down into Honor Oak Park today we noticed a grapevine coming out of the scrub and bramble bushes from the bottom of One Tree Hill. We took a closer look and there’s fruit, Chateaux (pronounced chat-ox) Forest Hill anyone? There’s an excellent piece about One Tree Hill if you’re interested here.

And while looking for bottle themed records found out about an artiste called Jah Bottle Head aka Alexander Portious who plays wonderful instrumentals using a comb and bottle or just a bottle head. Whatever he uses, it is a brilliant sound. Here’s his version of Gregory Isaacs’ Love is overdue.

And then we found this one below with a crazy dub, nearly a ton on discogs! We were feeling a bit down earlier and these tunes from the great Alexander Porteous/Jah Bottle Head have really cheered us up. First bottle and comb dub anyone?

And there’s a version of Everything I Own (plus Bottle Head Overdue) at 11.42 on this LP that has some other wonderful tracks on it. “King Tubby’s and Errol T are our engineers this evening”.

Raise your glass to Jah Bottle Head!

More from a north London garden (and France)

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We’ve just received some pictures from Debby H now we’re into the autumn season. She took a photo of the red robin bush (above) in the south of France just before she left to come back to London. “I took a photo of the red robin bush in the garden there. It has grown new red leaves which I have never seen before at this time of year. It usually happens in spring and sometimes in autumn. It just goes to show that this September has been much cooler and wetter than usual in that part of the world.” She’s got a point.

Back in north London things are still looking great, with the cosmos (above) still thriving. “Not quite so many flowers but pretty good for late September” and she’s right. There’s even some volunteer/self seeded ones growing alongside the path (below). The one we bought at B&Q after being influenced by Debby’s cosmos still has flowers and some new buds.

The sedum which we’re partial to are flowering and the golden rod is looking brilliant too (below).

Excellent stuff Debby. Hope the garden continues to look great even in the next few weeks as we approach the end of the year. Cheers again Debby!

Big shout going out in the direction of the lakes

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A very big thanks to Rich R for sending us some great pictures from the Lake District over the last couple of weeks. The one above is from Derwent Water in Keswick looking towards Borrowdale. My gosh, now you’re talking! And the one below was taken on his evening stroll, you can’t any better view than that in our opinion.

And below is a very odd moon making an appearance up there, the other night below, crazy stuff. The Lake District looks like one wonderful place Rich and ta for the pics, they are always welcomed.

Also cheers for the confectionary goodies emergency parcel (from the excellent Village Shop, Braithwaite) last week from the Lake District Rich. To say they were appreciated was an understatement! Thanks very much for that.

And the musical accompliment to this post is this week’s episode of the always excellent Rhythm Doctor’s Waiting Room on IDA Radio (Tallinn). A big cheers to RD for playing Madtone’s WP1 at 54 mins in. It’s a wonderful 2 hour show and well worth listening to.

Who said electronica was boring

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A big shout to our good friend actoss the pondJustin Patrick Moore (of the excellent The Radio Phonics Laboratory Book here) for passing on this great piece of electronica. It’s from GLOK / Timothy Clerkin with a lovely track called Empyrean. Starts pretty bonkers and gets even better, it’s a catchy bit of electronic malarkey. No idea what it reminds us of but it is great. Cheers Justin!

Who says dahlias are boring

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Big thanks to Mike G and Julia (Ace photos as usual by the way Julia!) for sending pictures of their wonderful dahlias that have been loving the decent weather up there near Coventry for the last two days. The black dahlia (above) is really something else!

The one above is another favourite of ours, a classic of dahlias! And as for the orange one below… We’ll be buying some tubers for the spring, we will.

And these pictures have given us an excuse to repost up an example of that rare genre called dahlia dub from Madtone called A dahlia state of mind.

And another dahlia themed track this time by Asta Hiroki.

And a final one by Jean-Michel Serres.

The sky’s the limit, the limit’s the sky’s

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Here’s the audio of yesterday’s Skybird Radio International which was broadcast via the services of Shortwave Gold. It’s all about grooves from around this world of ours and there’s some wonderful eclectic music in a true worldwide style from all of the Imaginary Stations including DJ Frederick and Justin Patrick Moore.

At 03.28 there’s a mix from One Deck Pete and here’s the tracklistings:
Madtone – Diamonds in the sky (excerpt)
Entjar Tjarmedi, Enip Sukanda, et al – Berber Lajar
Narcy – Bedaya
Leik – Toy Center at night
Los Zheros – Para Chachita
Dr Charty – Falling in Dub

So tune in and enjoy the show with just under an hour of worldwide tunes!