Back again with another station Francais – and this one might not be such a secret, at least if you live on the South Coast of England.
FIP is one of the stations run by Radio France. Founded at the start of the seventies, it’s a very simple, yet very unusual, format. Mixing up jazz, world music, reggae, classical and the occasional bit of hip hop and seventies rock, it keeps presentation to a minimum and threads music together like one of your mates’ mix tapes (remember them?) It follows themes and moods through in a manner most radio stations would never, ever dare.
So this morning we had Blossom Dearie’s spikely twee jazz, then David Bowie’s ‘Space Oddity’ , followed by Flight Of The Conchords ode to the Dame himself, with Tom Jones and Santogold snuggling up beside each other shortly after. Not to mention half a dozen tracks from Africa, France, Jamaica and further afield that I’ve never heard of before. All within the space of half an hour.
It’s music radio like you wish it could always be. Inventive, entertaining, exciting, always giving your ears a treat. And more often than not it’s music you either haven’t heard before, or something you know really well but which is framed in a way that makes you look at it afresh. Earlier I heard Elbow’s ‘Days Like These’ followed by some Puccini, and I had to stop what I was doing to catch my breath at the brilliant simplicity of the juxtaposition.
It’s a glorious listen, and David Hepworth explains some of the reasons why (much more eloquently than I’m able to) here. The station’s fame has spread far and wide, and specifically to Brighton where, apparently, it was relayed by a not for profit pirate and developed quite a following. The Man (a/k/a OFCOM) took the pirate off air, but hey, now we’ve got the internet no one can tell you what to listen to, right?
Tags: eclectic radio, FIP, France, hip hop, jazz, Radio, Reggae
