Sounds

Frank Zappa memorably asked whether humour has a place in music.

Although Frank made a lot of funny songs he was much more of a musician than a comedian otherwise he might have asked if music had a place in comedy.

Some people would say it hasn't. Most comedians can't sing well. Most musicians aren't funny.

I guess these people didn't like the South Park movie, or Blue Jam, or Reeves & Mortimer or the Mighty Boosh.

These are only a recent batch of examples. It used to be normal for comedians to be musical, but this became uncool for comedians who wanted to be more 'edgy' (Parker & Stone are pretty edgy though, I'd say- and so's Chris Morris).

Preverb is big on music (especially prog rock, minimalism, early 90's ambient electronica, Angelo Badlamenti, sacred music, Indian classical music, the Bonzos, etc...) and we put it on all our podcasts whether or not there's anything comic about the music.

But comedy or music alone are not as much fun as they are together. Pure audio seems an ideal medium for blending these two things because what is only heard is more flowing and open ended then what is also seen. Listening stimulates the visual imagination more freely than literal imagery; it's less linear, more dreamlike. This happens even without music if the other sounds used (voices say) are rich and interesting.

I doubt it's a coincidence that radio has been the starting point for a lot of influential British comedy (Hitchhiker's guide, League of Gentlemen, Mighty Boosh, and the Goon show of course).

What radio allows is a type of sound collage. Preverb's podcasts include compressed mixes of multiple voice/music/FX tracks.

For example,
http://preverb.co.uk/PodcastLumps!/destroy%20the%20sun%20(collage).MP3
http://preverb.co.uk/PodcastLumps!/TwentyTwelverer.MP3

These compressed sound collages are audio analogies for visual art collages (Preverb do them too). Collaging is all about unpredictably contrasting boundaries between things- which is what Preverb are all about, and this is how Preverb sets about presenting an alternative to the usual highly specialised monotony that dominates the world today.

You can see what we mean if you look at our website http://www.preverb.co.uk/
the site is itself a collage- you can play with it- you have to actually if you want to find all the content.

Give it a go. It's fun.