***DISCLAIMER: Rather than writing a distracted review of something picked at random, I have, for once, decided to write a straightforward recommendation about something I love.***
[..] and when you are inside the infinite misery jumper, pulling it over and over your head, with no hope of ending, cause it replicating at the waistband, and you never get out... then ee welcome... oh, then ee arth welcome... in Blue Jam. (from the intro of Series 1, Episode 1)
Experimental radio show Blue Jam combines the wonderfully weird and sometimes sick-minded with the absurdly funny, with a tone provided by a backdrop of dreamy, strange and just downright good music.
Originally broadcast in the late 90s on Radio 1 (!) - albeit late at night - its otherness is still striking. People with a certain sense of humour and penchant for strangeness will feel immediately at home when dropped into Chris Morris' world of doctors who kiss their patients where it hurts, mentally unstable human art exhibits and bosses who offer lewd gestures instead of payrises, all swirling in and out of a sea of songs that sound like they were made for this sole purpose.
From the Pidgin-English intro poetry to whole minutes of complete or near-silence, to jagged fragments of pop songs that cut in and out - even if it does nothing else, it is likely to take you by surprise and show you what radio can be.
If you share my love for this particular blend of sound art, and hear it for the first time, you will probably cry out: "Finally! I have been waiting for this for so long and didn't even know it. Why isn't there more of this?!"
Proudly weird people, please try to make something as excellent as (not: exactly like) Blue Jam. I know I'm certainly trying. Just you watch this space.
But first, if you haven't yet, listen for inspiration. Where? The YouTube channel Cook'd Bomb'd hosts the entire two series of Blue Jam for your enjoyment.
And if you have listened, and know all about what I mean, listen again, and feel at home in your head.
x
Image credit: http://static.flickr.com/38/82190977_a889b98803_o.jpg
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