upside downer

Jah, Venezuela!

North African reggae from Algeria's Democratoz.

Off to the Netherlands (although the gig's in Italy) for this curio from Dutch footballing legend Ruud Gullit.

Been held up in Indonesia for the last 48 hours for, erm, 'customs irregularities' but, having stowed aboard a slow boat to Australia, happened upon this lot...

Heading over to Indonesia for this laid back tune.

One from Ukraine for today.

"We come from the land of the ice and snow...", Icelandic smooth groove from Hjálmar. This just gets better and better the more I hear it (and it was pretty good to start with!)

I've been through four different genres already but, finally, my muse has pulled something up from the seabed of song fragments wallowing upon the ocean floor and it's now time to set sail for Composition Island. Doesn't mean it'll be any good, but still, ahoy, me hearties!

Reggae road trip, innit? 😁

Turkish reggae? Of course Turkish reggae!

Bravo @NickD 👏 great tune up against some other belters 🙂

RIP Dickie.

The three I'd usually pump out were Don't Give Me No Lip Child by Sex Pistols, She Bangs the Drums by Stone Roses and Bug Powder Dust by Bomb the Bass.

In the spirit of getting it done early like some others have, here's mine with a week to spare 🙂 A late night cruise by two artificial Ferraris through the mean streets of Artificial City to an artificial electro-synthpop soundtrack. No strings were plucked in the making of this melodic, mood music. Recorded with Wavepad and Ableton, I used the MT Power Drum Kit and Ableton's extensive library of sounds for the bleeps, bloops and banging donks.

I'd offer my services but I guess you want to win again instead 😁

Bravo, @Wolfram, in with a bullet! Good stuff 👏

That's an Irish bouzouki. Flat back rather the round back of a Greek, and the Greek is tuned CFAD (one step below the high four of a guitar). The Irish has versatility with the option of a few tunings. GDAE for those with mandolin knowledge in mind but for accompaniment and drone notes GDAD and ADAD are more common. Then, there's the octave string argument, too. Some like the top two courses to be in octaves, others all the courses in unison. There are so many of these little variations (including scale length) that make these instruments so fascinating.

650mm is the usual scale but they can be longer. Both my Greek and Irish 'zouks are 670mm. Gives you more resonance, according to those in the know. Any chance of a picture of it?

You say crude, but that looks alright. You say you want to try something with double courses of strings, how about a stab at a mandocello? Just like a tenor guitar, tuning of CGDA and an octave below a mandola. Beautiful deep, rich sound.

Not sure if it counts as a pun, but after David Bowie released Low, Nick Lowe released an album called Bowi.