For the last 15 years Tim Sweeney’s BIS radio show has been next level. The man with impeccable taste and maybe one of the worst radio voices known to man has created one of the most listenable shows the wireless (and the internet) has ever seen, due in no small part to the quality of the guests. That said Sweeney’s been the glue that stitches it all together, his awkward whine since becoming one of the most reassuring voices we know, and jokes about his accent aside the man is a proper inspiration to the way we approach music. Big up Tim!
So we knew we were gonna like the compilation he’s done to celebrate a decade and a half of discerning disco deviance, even more so when we realised it was smugly split between one disc of show exclusives and another rammed full of classics off the show throughout its tenure. We didn’t know we were going to like it this much though, because what is up is an absolute classic.
Take the first disc. It starts with Eric Duncan fixing up Edwin Starr, one half of Rub N Tug and one of the most amazing guests over the years, here dropping a low slung edit of epic proportions to kick off proceedings. From then on it luges from the mellifluous sashaying of Duke of Chutney towards the woozy jackhammer techno of Barnt’s ‘Chappell’, floating in and around. It manages to capture the off kilter essence that makes the show so great, that sense of dancefloor nirvana quickly followed by a hazy synth based cul de sac, done so in a way though that you could quite easily lose your shit to this at an afterparty or just slip into an abyss on public transport.
The second though is really where it’s at. Regular BIS listeners will know about the crank caller Tim got back in 2006, who tore into the show and claimed the broadcast of it amounted to career suicide, among many other ridiculous accusations. Tim’s chose those soundbites to bookend his mix here, rifling through taps aff moments from regular guests and frequent tracklist contributors such as Mathias Aguayo, Tensnake and Ralph Falcon. The mix slowly mutates from proto house right up to dreamy electronica, ebbing and flowing through sleazy disco and techno along the way, sumptuously building delicately and shifting direction with ease along the way.
The closing crescendo there is up there with the best of the classic mixes from over the years as well, when Carl Craig’s monumental sluggish acid behemoth of a remix of Delia * Gavin’s ‘Relevee’ gets the equivalent of an aural cuddle from Welcome Stranger’s beautifully warm remix of Rocha. After that we get the fizzing reverence to old school jack Prosumer is the ultimate for, before the Black Dog’s Bilal pseudonym and Tim Blake’s dreamy seventies sci fi grooves collide for a wet dream of an ending, before that caller gets all worked up again about clowns.
Both the mixes here are what DJing should be about, the ability to rocket between genres, textures and moods with deft ease, but above all to really make a statement about the personality of the person selecting the music. Beats in Space has been doing that for 15 years, but over two cds it distills that mastery into an utterly joyous ensemble of music everyone should fall in love with – a genuinely magical mix cd.
5 out of 5
Reviewed by Autocycle
{http://soundcloud.com/h-track/sets/tim-sweeney-va-beats-in-space-15th-anniversary-mix-3lp}
