Blue Jam

Here's something that's obviously not 'journalism' but may perhaps give you ideas about creative ways to work with sound. Blue Jam was a Radio 1 series created a decade ago now by the controversial (and brilliant) satirical comedian Chris Morris. The BBC described it as "an experimental, ambient radio comedy series". Others referred to it as 'uneasy listening'. Morris mixed up a series of strange and puzzling sketches with radically re-edited real life material, running the whole thing on a bed of ambient electronica.

The re-edits caused a bit of a fuss at the time, in particular the treatment of the Archbishop of Canterbury’s oration during the funeral of Princess Diana. In the version that was mixed into Blue Jam, the BBC says that 'he appeared to say inappropriate remarks about AIDS and the Royal Family'. There's more on this on the BBC site and on Wikipedia.

Blue Jam went on to be a TV show and bits of it were issued on CD by Warp Records - they describe it as part mix tape, part sketch show. On their site, you can hear a bonus sketch. (That's where the image above comes from). There's an online archive of the shows if you want to have a listen. I'm not sure whether they might sound a bit dated now or whether they still create the same sense of uneasiness. If you do give them a listen, let me know what you think.