The Wide Weird World Of Henry Jacobs / The Fine Art Of Goofing Off
(Important) Used CD + DVD $15.00 (Out-of-stock)
The brilliantly sequenced CD cycles “through a kaleidoscopic array of sound bites that are alternately funny, charmingly nostalgic, bizarre, psychedelic and inexplicable,” notes Brainwashed. “From the odd verbal tennis of Jacobs and Ken Nordine … to a soft-spoken public radio DJ introducing … the ‘new sounds of musíque concrète,’ to the spooky psychedelic brain shivers of ‘Telephone Therapy,’ or the numerous excerpted bits of the wacky ‘Laughing String’ sketch, listeners unfamiliar with Jacobs’s work are in for a treat. Unlike [his] tape collage[s] from this period, Jacobs is unconcerned with formalism or overworking his sources too much…. [His] free-form approach [is] tuned toward less academic pursuits [with a] sensibility … informed by exotica and cartoon soundtracks, the radio landscape and early television…. [On] the TV programs on the included DVD, produced by Jacobs, animator Bob McClay and producer Chris Koch…, strange audio cues of various interviews and spoken-word bits set different primitive animations into motion, using a stream-of-consciousness editing style to meditate, albeit very abstractly, on the subject of leisure and leisurely activities. Stop-motion claymation, experimental film techniques, Terry Gilliam-style cutouts, subliminal image juxtapositions and psychedelic animations complement an eclectic soundtrack of music, jarring sound effects, and a series of narrators ruminating on leisure, delivering anecdotes and reading from funny ‘social engineering’ pamphlets. It’s undeniably reminiscent of early episodes of Sesame Street in its attempt to marry the surreal and psychedelic to family-friendly, educational programming.”