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”.
Big thanks to Debby H for sending us a great picture today (above) of possibly the last cosmos of the year in her garden. She said, “If the weather brightens up later on, I will go out and deadhead them, then maybe they will keep on flowering.” Great stuff! We hope they do keep flowering.
Now we love the cosmos, we can’t stop seeing them about. Here’s one spotted on our early morning travels in SE23 this week, they’re a bit blurred but you’ll get the gist.
And a few doors down we saw a nice raised (vegetable) bed with some trellis used as a squirrel, pigeon and general pest deterrent, what a clever idea.
And from gardening we move onto the subject of music which goes hand in hand here on Weeds. We heard Skinshape x Horus– N’Téro (feat. Modou Toure) on last week’s Ross Allen NTS show here and it’s a lovely slice of reggae! Catchy as anything too.
Here’s a nice bit of dub called Order Dub for a Saturday night off the Self-Titled EP from Nadia McAnuff & The Ligerians from SoulNurse Records out of Tours, France from the golden year of 2022. It’s a subtle bit of mixing but lots going on if that makes sense.
And we just found by pure chance now on Bandcamp a do over of a version of Dennis Walks‘ Heat Don’t Leap by the one and only Gregory Isaacs called Gone is the Love from a good few years ago. Great tune!
And funny enough there was a few cuts of the original “Heart Don’t Leap” and more great tunes on On The Wire the other week. Listen in here!
Do you reckon the weather will hold out for gardening tomorrow? It was perfect here this morning and afternoon. Fingers crossed!
Big shout to Steve Barker for playing this tune above on On The Wire a long while ago, it’s by Andy’s All-Stars and it’s called Banjo Serenade, the B side to I Roy‘s Step Right Up. That record may be the only instance of said instrument used in reggae unless you know any more examples. Don’t Banjos sound great when dubbed up!
Oh dear looks like we may have opened that banjo can of beans as these can be sort of deemed dubwise. Know of any others?
Fancy listening to an hour of music made by a wide range of instruments your music teacher didn’t encourage you to take up?
If so KZOO is on 9395 kHz shortwave at 2200 UTC tomorrow Sunday 22nd May 2022 via WRMI. There’s güiros a go-go, a toy piano here and there and some jaw harp thrown in for good measure. Also at 23 mins in is a mix from One Deck Pete called “Feeding time at KZOO”. Tune in and enjoy!
Here’s one great mix from DJ Khalab as played on Tom Ravenscroft the other week. To quote his bandcamp his music is “an ongoing round trip journey between tribes and psyche, desert and spaceships, jungle and skyscrapers.” This mix is one mad (coach) journey to say the least!
The mix is available here for another few weeks, listen soon before it disappears! Here’s what’s on it:
1. Dj Khalab & Dj Hendrix – 6THPRLL 2. Owiny Sigoma Band (DJ Khalab Remix) – Too Hot 3. Konono No.1– Kinsumba 4. Space Diaspora – OY (Clap Clap Remix) 5. Tam Tam Tam Reimagined – Maos A Obra 6. Machinedrum – Lewasi
One to whack out of the backroom windows loud on any evening this week coming as it’s “gonna be a heatwave” or so BBC weather says. So keep them plants a watered!
Big thanks to Steve Barker from the excellent On The Wire on BBC Radio Lancashire for supplying this ace reggae chart for us. On The Wire has been playing the best in reggae, dub, electronica, ambient and all sorts of eclectic business weekly for over 30 years and is available Saturday midnight here and available on listen again here.
So here’s the tunes and there’s some crackers on here. If the tune is not featured, click on the links to view on youtube.
Cheers again to Steve for the chart, shouts to Fenny and Jim at On The Wire too. Keep up the good work!
A big shout to our good friend Phil Harmony from Dubnight Radio Show, Berlin for alerting us to this great flower pic taken at the Prince Valley Guest House in the beautiful surroundings of the Blue Mountains, Jamaica.
A big thanks to the owners Jackie and Robert for getting in touch with the name of the plant which is the flame vine (Pyrostegia Venusta). Justhow brilliant are those flowers? If you want to know more about this rampant climber have a look here. It says in some parts of the world it grows as a weed! Beats ground elder anyday!
Last year we featured the Prince Valley Guest House and the great plants that are on-site. There’s some out of the ordinary stuff growing including (above) the Jade Vine (a member of the pea and bean family, can you believe?) The posts are here and here.
So if you’re travelling to the “the land of wood and water” (as Rodigan says,) spend a couple of nights at the guesthouse (with an adjoining coffee farm) as it looks a great place! More on the guest house here. Thanks to Phil, Jackie and Robert again! We love that tropical flower madness here!
Heard on the excellent David Rodigan 1Xtra show this week. Dennis and Gregory from beyond the grave with the living midlander Macka B (remixed by Curtis Lynch). One to whack on when you find out someone’s Tomatoes are doing better than yours!
Here’s one great mix from 
Weeds up to me knees 