Tag Archives: North of the River Swan

Who listens in mono anymore? We do!

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A week tomorrow (thanks to Fred and the Imaginary Stations crew), we have the fourth episode of Downbeat on Shortwave via Shortwave Gold.

Big shout to our musical collaborator Jesse Yuen from North of The River Swan, Perth, Australia! One Deck Pete (Slightly south of The Napier public house) and Jesse bring you two 15-minute downtempo mixes each over the hour-long show. Expect some top ambient, dub, reggae and downtempo vibes to wind down to and enjoy.

The show is broadcast on Saturday 13th June at 1100 hrs UTC on 6160 kHz and then again on Sunday 14th June at 1300 hrs UTC on 6160 kHz and 2000 hrs UTC on 3975 kHz/6160 kHz. If you haven’t got a shortwave radio you can tune in via an online Software Defined Radio here (pre-tuned into 6160 kHz). Check you are in the right time zone (UK is presently an hour ahead of UTC so if you wanted the 1100 UTC broadcast, tune in at 12 noon) and experience the mono sounds with all the fading live.

Gardening all over the world (as Status Quo may have sang)

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Thanks to our Downbeat on Shortwave collaborator and gardening friend Jesse Yuen who was out and about in his garden in Perth last weekend and sent us some pictures. (Top Picture) “It’s about 4.30pm in the afternoon, but there’s beautiful light because there’s a bush fire burning somewhere, so the smoke is giving everything a bit of a golden hue.”

He’s just acquired a new plant, a yellow flowering kangaroo paw. “I salvaged them from a house down the road about to be knocked down as I was on my way to DJ at a bush doof. I’ve been keeping it alive in a pot in the backyard until the weather cooled down and I had a chance to plant it.” That’s a find! More on the plant here.

He also got himself a eucalyptus macrocarpa for his garden. As he told us “This one is an absolute beauty. We’ve been on the waiting list at our local nursery for about six months, but some people wait for over two years. It’s a native, but it’s rare to buy it at a nursery. Check out pictures of it in an adult form to see how it gets.” See pic below, blimmin ‘eck!

And related to the kangaroo paw, here’s some pictures of the bush doof Jesse was DJing at and it looks a looks a great one!

He also said, “I’m gardening to the sounds of the preview of an amazing sounding downtempo album by local Australian artist Freda” and here’s a track from it.

 

Cheers for keeping us updated Jesse and the garden (and the bush rdoof) looks great!

Chill out via the ionosphere (or by groundwave)

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Imaginary Stations will be bringing you a one-off programme called Downbeat on Shortwave this weekend. On Saturday 18th January 2025 at 1200 hrs UTC on 6160 kHz and on Sunday 19th January 2025 at 1000/1400 hrs UTC on 6160 kHz and at 2100 UTC on 3975 kHz they’ll be an hour of downtempo tunes being transmitted across the shortwave radio waves. (UTC is same as UK Time at the moment).

Jesse Yuen from North of the River Swan (Australia) and One Deck Pete from Imaginary Stations/Weeds up to me knees (McLaren’s, Brockley Rise SE23) will be bringing you two 15 minute downtempo mixes each in a back to back style. Tune in your shortwave radio this weekend or if you haven’t got one, via an online Software Defined Radio here at the right time and on the right frequency as they say (in AM mode) and listen in and chill out.

Something very special from far far away

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A big shout to Jesse Yuen (of RTMFM’s North of The River Swan) for letting us know that he’s moved into a new house in Perth and that in the garden they have a wonderful looking Foxtail Agave (above) that’s actually flowering! As Jesse said “Flowers are rare for the plant and each one only flowers once in their life, after 10-15 years.” and he also said “It’s like ours is welcoming us to the new house.” We agree with you there! What a great housewarming present.

Jesse also said “All over Perth you can see them flowering, and the members of local gardening Facebook groups are speculating that because we had a really dry, long summer, they are in shock which has bought on a mass flowering season.”

He was saying the bees are going bonkers for the flowers and told us “Apparently once it finishes flowering the big head dies off and these smaller “pups” take over” (above and below).

Absolutely wonderful stuff Jesse and best of luck to you and the family for the new house and hope everything goes well with the move and getting settled in! More on the wonderful plant here.

Around the world, around the world – Part 2

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A big shout to Jesse Yuen from the excellent North of the River Swan radio show (which is on a sabbatical for the time being) from RTM FM  presently living in Bassendean, Perth, Western Australia. He sent us some pics of a job he did yesterday taking Frangipani cuttings that he’s been drying out over the last few weeks.

We don’t really know much about the plant (aka Plumeria) apart from it grows in the subtropics, has distinctive smelling flowers and the plant can only be grown here as a houseplant. Best of luck with the cuttings Jesse, they look like trees compared to the tiny cuttings we usually take over here, blimmim’ eck!

Also a big thanks to our good friend Wlad (US7IGN) in Kyiv for sending us some more excellent pictures from a Ukrainian countryside garden (below). Cheers Wlad, some great stuff and appreciated as always!

There is a land far far away (musical update)

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Here’s a quick update to the last but one post featuring Jesse Yuen‘s parents garden in  Perth, Western Australia. Cheers to Jesse for sending us an update of what he’s listening to on the Hi-Fi at the moment.

This mix from Aussie producer Cousin is a great eclectic mix up:

Also Paul St. Hilaire’s – Tikiman Vol​.​1 is on heavy rotation

And this local reissue of 90s dub/downtempo tunes is also getting frequent spins. This is some nice stuff by the way!

Cheers Jesse for sending us some nice recommendations that we’re going to explore further.

There is a land far far away

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Talking of RTM FM, a big shout to Jesse Yuen of the excellent North of the River Swan radio show (which is on a break for the time being) for sending us this morning some excelllent pictures of his parents garden in Bassendean, Perth, Western Australia where he is at the moment. It’s a brilliant space and has some out there plants we could only dream about having here!

It looks a wonderful space and a lovely place for chilling out in! He’s sent us some close ups of flowers from the yard too. Great stuff!

And here’s the last North of The River Swan (until later this year hopefully) as Jesse (as it says on the mixcloud) “is taking some time off to recalibrate the compass and recharge the radio batteries”. Take it easy and we look forward to your return to the radio and to your shortwave debut. Cheer for the gardening pics, do send us more.

Imaginary Stations on RTM.FM

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Big shout to all at RTM.FM in Thamesmead, south east London for broadcasting the Imaginary Stations show monthly from this Saturday at 6pm UK time online here.

RTM.FM is also home to our good mate Jesse Yuen who broadcasts the excellent downbeat/bass/”not a” reggae show North of the River Swan every forth Sunday of the month. Here’s the last episode which featured at 1.09.00 in a repeat of “A weeds up to me knees dub special” from a couple of years ago.

Here’s the tracks for A weeds up to me knees dub special (tracklistings for the actual show are on the Mixcloud comments).

David Harrow – Sugar Dub (Workhouse Digital)
Overseerer – Madlab (Soundclash)
Sammy Dread ft Danny Dread – Follow Fashion (Volcano)
Anthony Johnson – Zuggi Zeng version (Archive)
Jazz’min & Madtone – Open up your dub retouched (Blossoms Kitchen)
The Mighty Quark – Smokescreen (King Syndrome Sounds)
Dennis Brown – Shaka the Great Warrior (DEB Music)
An excerpt of Kukan Dub Lagan – It’s about her (MikelaBella Records)
Ralph Myers & Jack Herron band – Savannah (Emperor Norton)
The Rhythm Method – Ranking Nico (Red Megaphone Music Cassette)
Jah Mason – Request Dub (Belleville International)
Johnny Clarke – Roots Natty Congo (Striker Lee)
Tyler Ov Gaia – A portal into another world (Believe France)

(We need) more dub on the radio!

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A big thanks to Jesse Yuen for letting us know about some dub happenings from 22nd – 28th February 2021 on RTM.FM Thamesmead here. It’s a week long celebration of soundsystem culture under the name of Original Selector!

Tonight at 8pm UK/UTC will be Jesse’s North of the River Swan show with a Jungle special. Tune in via the website, go to the top left hand corner and click “Live” and you’ll be treated to all sorts of subsonic bass frequencies! Looks like it’s going to be a great week!

Also we were very chuffed to be asked to select an LP (which would be played in its entirety on air) that sums up “soundsystem” for us. For us it had to be classic Dreadlocks Dread from Big Youth.

Tune in to RTM.FM this week for some serious sound system business!

Here’s some great footage of 1970’s Jamaica alongside the excellent track “Train to Rhodesia”.

Here’s some great footage of 2017’s Lewisham alongside the great Youth himself!

Dub gardeners of the world unite

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A big shout to Jesse Yuen who presents the excellent RTM.FM show North of the River Swan that specialises in downtempo dub and low end business on the second Sunday of the month from 4-6pm. Thanks to Jesse for sending us some pics (Thanks to Dee for taking them) of his great looking indoor planting scheme. The space is so bright and alive!

There’s a good variety of plants here even though us at Weeds are not the best when it comes to looking after plants of the indoor variety (we tend to overwater them then forget about them we’re ashamed to say.) There’s all sorts here including Kentia Palm, Chinese money plant (sometimes known as the UFO plant!), Prayer Plant, Tropic Snow, Mother-in-law’s Tongue, Devils Ivy, Parlour Palm, Umbrella Tree, Yucca, Mistletoe cactus (that looks well interesting) and the well hardy Spider Plant. (By the way whilst we’re on the subject of houseplants we have to mention a podcast to start following if you love gardening of the great indoors. It’s Jane Perrone‘s On the Ledge available here.)

And Jesse sent some of his favourite tunes from the North of the River Swan record boxes below to get stuck into. We didn’t know a lot of this stuff and that is what’s good about this music lark, once you open up that can of worms it’s never ending. There’s a ton of excellent tunes played on the show too so peruse the show’s mixcloud site here.

And do listen to the last episode of the show from 2020 featuring Jesse and Dubplate Pearl as it’s excellent stuff and full of some cracking tunes! Includes Prince Fari, Yabby You, Tradition, the great Depthcharge from Keith Hudson (What a tune!), a dub of Play fool get wise by Johnny Clarke and lots more great music.

Thanks again Jesse for sending the pics and the tunes!