Feel Jah FM: radio in diretta

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Feel Jah FM

A record collection, on air.

Trojan-era reggae, dub and dub poetry, off the vinyl.

Feel Jah FM has been running since 2010 on a library nobody else has. Alongside the new Caribbean records sent in by artists looking for a first airing, the station plays transfers of vinyl collected across the sixties, seventies and eighties and donated to it — sides by singers who never got past Jamaica, some with no trace online at all, kept in rotation next to the canon. Nothing is sold between the records: the whole point is that the collection plays without interruption, at any hour, to whoever happens to be listening.

What comes out is a Trojan box set with the dust left on. Jimmy Cliff and Horace Andy sit beside G.G. Allstars dub plates and Linton Kwesi Johnson reciting over a bassline, early reggae and rocksteady turning into dub and back again. New submissions drop into the same rotation, which is how a debut single ends up following a record cut fifty years before it.

Altre come questa

United StatesSan Francisco

Heavyweight Reggae

Bass heavy enough to lean on.

CyprusNicosia

Koubebi Radio

Cypriot in every language.

BermudaHamilton

dr_dick's dub shack

Echo, space, and nothing else.

FranceLyon

Vandale Radio

New, and not asking permission.

SerbiaBelgrade

Radio Aparat

Independent, in a city short of it.

FranceLa Côte-d'Arbroz

Disruptive Rhythms

No algorithm was consulted.

AustriaSalzburg

Radiofabrik

Outran the helicopters.

ItalyCatania

Radio Stravento

A neighbourhood holding its ground.

FranceArras

Radio PFM

Temporary, for forty-five years.

French GuianaKourou

Radio Péka

No format ever took hold.

United KingdomGlasgow

Radio Buena Vida

The bar is the studio.

United StatesSilver Spring

Kingston12 Digital Radio

Playlists that ignore the chart.

United KingdomLondon

Netil Radio

The whole neighbourhood gets a slot.

GermanyCologne

dublab DE

Kölsch by postcode, cosmic by taste.

GermanyNuremberg

Radio Z

Left of the dial, left of centre.

FranceGranville

Radio 50/50

Camembert with a sound system.

FranceClermont-Ferrand

Radio Campus Clermont-Ferrand

A campus radio with no campus.

United KingdomBrighton

RadioReverb

Funded by its own listeners.

New ZealandDunedin

Radio One 91FM

Every hour has a name on it.

TurkeyIstanbul

Radyo Modyan

Amateur in the best sense.

Feel Jah FM

A record collection, on air.

Trojan-era reggae, dub and dub poetry, off the vinyl.

Feel Jah FM has been running since 2010 on a library nobody else has. Alongside the new Caribbean records sent in by artists looking for a first airing, the station plays transfers of vinyl collected across the sixties, seventies and eighties and donated to it — sides by singers who never got past Jamaica, some with no trace online at all, kept in rotation next to the canon. Nothing is sold between the records: the whole point is that the collection plays without interruption, at any hour, to whoever happens to be listening.

What comes out is a Trojan box set with the dust left on. Jimmy Cliff and Horace Andy sit beside G.G. Allstars dub plates and Linton Kwesi Johnson reciting over a bassline, early reggae and rocksteady turning into dub and back again. New submissions drop into the same rotation, which is how a debut single ends up following a record cut fifty years before it.