Yann Tiersen rose to the front rank of film composers with the irresistible Amelie, but he's keen to stress that he'd recorded for years prior to that. He's collaborated with The Divine Comedy's Neil Hannon, among others, and sells out the Royal Festival Hall in his own right. Goodbye Lenin!, directed by Wolfgang Becker, won awards at Berlin this spring, and Tiersen's score is a chest-swelling thing of beauty and a million violins. Actually, 17 violins—I've just checked. Yann himself plays piano, melodica and violin—so that makes 18. Claire Pichet is guest vocalist.
The TV version of Chris Morris' Radio 1 series Blue Jam (plus the late-night counterpart, Jaaaaam, also included here) pushed beyond the edges of comedy with an almost sadistic determination into a blurry miasma of appalling, nightmare scenarios, Kafkaesque horror and bitter, acidic satire, to the bleak accompaniment of a dark ambient soundtrack. The heaviest 'light entertainment' ever attempted, Jam didn't so much make you laugh as fill you with a rapt, faintly nauseous feeling of unease.
Brian Cox and Leonard Rossiter are the TV executives broadcasting Sportsex and Artsex to keep the masses lulled into passivity in Nigel Kneale's 1968 dystopian TV play. It's creaky and dated, with the production values of Dr Who, and not in the least bit erotic—but it's also prophetic (of reality TV) and strangely compelling.
