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Broadcast date: Tuesday 20th January, 7pm
Resonance 104.4 FM in greater London or stream online from www.resonancefm.com

Jean-Jacques Perrey is a living legend in the history of 20th century electronic music. Credited with inventing sampling and bringing tape loop technologies of music concréte to the mainstream, his influence as a composer and scientist has shaped the future of every electronic musician in the world today. Perrey is a pioneer with a mission - to reject the 'serious' notions of music concréte composers like teacher Pierre Schaeffer and to convey 'a message of humour' to heal the troubles of the world.

For the last 75 years, Frenchman Perrey, a 'citizen of the world', has led a charmed life; with Edith Piaf as his fairy godmother, Jean Cocteau his magician and Walt Disney as his wizard Merlin, Perrey travelled to America to explore the swinging 60s with some of the greatest names in music, literature and cinema. Perrey always had a dual passion for both music and science, but his 'little demon of music' took force, and in the creative utopia of post-war America, Perrey became a commercial musician and composer working on soundtracks for adverts, Disney cartoons and producing international hit records 'Kaleidoscopic Vibrations' and 'The In sound From Way Out' (with 'Popcorn' composer Gershon Kingsley) and 'Moog Indigo' (with 'Blue Velvet' composer Angelo Badalamenti), which spawned the disco hit 'E.V.A.' and music still featured today in television adverts and the Disneyland parade.

Perrey the scientist merged technological innovation with humour and originality; his technique of 'electronic sono-syntheses' combined sounds of natural origin with very new electronic instruments (Moog, Ondioline, Ondes Martenot). From his library of over three thousand sounds, Perrey produced radical tape loops of natural and modified sounds spliced together to produce strange and humourous sequences. His version of 'Flight of the Bumblebee' used miles of tape recording from inside a beehive, which was spliced and pitch shifted into Rimsky-Korsakov's popular melody in a work which predates the first sampler by fifteen years. Musicians in the 1990s re-discovered the influence of Perrey - rappers and DJs like Ice T, House of Pain, Busta Rhymes and Fat Boy Slim have subsequently sampled and covered his recordings.

In celebration of his 75th birthday on January 20th, musician and broadcaster Hypnotique joins Monsieur Jean-Jacques Perrey in his home town of Lausanne, Switzerland to celebrate a lifetime of pioneering music with in depth conversation and rare and classic recordings. In this 90 minute documentary/interview, Perrey discusses his infamous tape loop technique, his musical inspirations, celebrity friends of the 1950s, his two recent albums (Elektronics and Circus of Life) and his ongoing research into music and sleep and reminisce on a golden age of electronic music when 'humour sparkled in the music like champagne'.

This documentary features contributions from Angelo Badalamenti, Gershon Kingsley, Air, Tim Gane (Stereolab), Dana Countryman (Cool & Strange Music), David Chazam & Sonic Boom.

This documentary is the first in a series of music documentaries and live radio shows entitled 'Switched On' which celebrates the 125th anniversary of the invention of electricity - showcasing electronic music pioneers and recordings of the 20th century. The series will run throughout 2004 on Resonance FM in the UK.

This show is available for radio syndication worldwide. For further information contact: Susi O'Neill Tel: +44 (0) 7981 222799 Email: info@hypnotique.net

www.switchedonradio.co.uk