Tune In: We're Living Through a Golden Age of UK Radio
Listen to the radio / and you will hear the songs you know-Robbie Williams

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Music

Tune In: We're Living Through a Golden Age of UK Radio

From NTS to Radar, the dance radio landscape's never looked healthier.

Where would we be without the radio, eh? Incredibly bored in traffic jams on August bank holidays and devoid of a soundtrack to lawnmowing, probably. That's where we'd be. A nation of office workers plunged into the deeply worrying, deeply troubling world of small talk and silence. What would we do in the waiting room of small town dental surgeries without the dulcet tones of Steve Wright burbling away in the background, introducing yet another play of "Over My Shoulder" by Mike + The Mechanics? What would your dad, as in your literal dad, do without the comforting cacophony of 606 on the way back from the football on a Saturday evening? I dread to think. He doesn't want the aux cord, son. He's not even got a smartphone. No, he says, spluttering post-match pie over the dashboard, you can keep your bloopy blippity nonsense, thank you, I've got Cornelius Lycett.

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The radio is a throwback to a time when we weren't so burdened with choice, an age when decisions were made for us and we either liked it or lumped it or ended up giving Comedy Dave a brief career for reasons that have never made total sense. When the songs are chosen for you, just like they were in the olden days, the olden days you remember, the olden days when people listened to albums like the anachronistic idiots they were, the olden days before you read more thinkpieces bemoaning the death of the album than you actually listened to albums. When the banter rung through the air like a clarion call. When Aled and Chappers were still a thing. There was, and still is, something gorgeously ephemeral about the radio. It wafts into nothingness, seeps into our daily lives without asking for consent, lingering pleasantly, leaving just as soon as it crept through the kitchen.

Anyone blessed enough to be born before Euro 96 probably has some cringey memory of a teen-hood awakening activated by the crackle and hiss of radio's comforting compression. Silently reflect upon yours now. That was fun wasn't it? Well, no, not really, but still, I've proved my point: the radio lives with us and within us and, happily, UK radio is as strong as it has been for decades as we ease ourselves into the gloomy murk of early 2016.

As always, the most interesting aspects lie outside the constraints of the mainstream. While the BBC continues to get some things very right, it's commitment to fulfilling the criteria foisted upon it as a national broadcaster means that much of the good is buried under the mediocre. Your standard commercial hits station sounds exactly like it did a decade ago, but Anastacia's been swapped for Adele and the weather's now read from a central command office that doesn't quite understand that place names might not be pronounced the way they're spelt. TalkSport remains oddly good value for what is a station dedicated to blokes called Gav whining about offside decisions. LBC, for those of us lucky enough to live, work, or rot in our nation's capitol, is still LBC.

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Step back from the realm of the physical, however, and things get more interesting, more unexpected, more like radio used to be. NTS, based out of a hut barely big enough to accommodate a pair of 1210s just off the Kingsland Road, still, for my money, continues to be arguably the most exciting radio station in the country. Just yesterday saw them announce a batch of new shows and hosts, including the likes of Eclair Fifi, Optimo, Helm, Kamixlo, and Numero Group. An average day on NTS jumps from Charlie Bones to Prosumer, Murlo to Max D, Slimzee to Trevor Jackson, and that's the simple beauty of it. Always impeccably curated, it's a reminder that you can, when you get it right, transmit some of the excitement and intimacy of the club to the radio. You've got just got to book fucking great DJs.

Which is what everyone else is doing, too obviously. Rinse's move a few years back from the pirates to full on FM legitimacy, has done absolutely nothing to harm it's pulling power, and pretty much every regular show on there is well worth a listen. A fine and noble institution that continues to do incredible work. Truly an inspiration to all radio stations out there looking to push club culture forward.

We've covered both Balamii and Radar pretty extensively here on THUMP over the last year or so, but the pair now, we feel, truly deserve to be spoken of in the same breath as the likes of Rinse or NTS, especially as both have recently expanded their output considerably.

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Operating out of two very different studios —Radar have a pretty plush mutli-roomed spot in Clerkenwell, Balamii a teeny tiny homemade slot in an arcade just off Rye Lane— there's a shared ethos, with both using themselves as platforms for up and coming DJs to play in peaktime slots, encouraging the process to be a socially driven, fun experience that prioritizes talent over personal brands. This is the joy of radio — it feels personal. You get to know not only a DJs taste but their personality too. And that means that when you stumble into them in a club, and you're pissed as a newt, you could probably have a semi-decent stab at a semi-decent conversation with them. Which is nice.

The Balamii studio

When we spoke to Ollie Ashley from Radar late last year, he confidently stated that, "London does radio the best in the world. Hands down. No questions asked," and it's pretty hard to argue with that. With one slight, positive caveat: one of the few joys the internet offers us is the ability to stay connected to local scenes with relative ease, and radio, with it's rotating cast of voices and personalities is a perfect way to dip into the beating musical heart of cities you've never personally stepped foot in. Want to know what Manchester sounds right now? Head to Unity Radio. Haven't got a clue what people in Leeds are into at the moment? Check out Live On Air. Big night out in Bristol soon? Tune into 10Twenty.

The idea of 'local radio' has, thanks primarily to Alan Partridge, always seemed a bit naff, a bit tinpot, a bit, well, local. Smalltime. Parochial. Provincial. Stations like the ones above are proof if proof needs be that this is, frankly, total bullshit. As more and more stations pop up, those that already exist have to work even harder to justify their existence. Which is a good thing. Competition makes for better product, after all.

We're no longer restricted by the limitations of transmitters. There's literally an entire world out there, broadcasting 24/7. That world is yours. Embrace it and stop letting SoundCloud do all the work, you lazy, lazy bastard.

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