Since a few month I tune into the streams of the BBC whenever I’m online – which I usually am whenever I’m at home – which I usually am. The girls have taken control over the non mainstream big-beat dance sound of Radio 1: Breezblock, Annie Mac and Annie Nightingale; after the too sad pass-away of my alltime favorite John Peel One World is on 4 times a week now and doing the best keeping up with his heritage (not replicating his unique melange of a dancehall track followed by a death metal track followed by a 30’s schellack recording… but providing close-up features of record labels, genres, styles at the edge of the river); and there is the ever-jazzy-funky-groovy Gilles Peterson and the ever-talking-pressure-dropping Fabio and Grooverider.

1Xtra is Radio 1’s recent offspring and even more focused:
Drum & Bass: L Double, DJ Flight, Bailey
Various Beats: Panjabi Hit Squad, Benji B
UK Garage: J Da Flex, Richie Vibe Vee, Heartless Crew

The good news is that you can listen to all shows online for the whole next week after the original broadcast. The bad news is that this really kills time and just constraining oneself to about 16 shows a week requires effort and coordination. The good news again is that most shows really are great (after building ones portfolio, there are also a great shows for jazz, classical music, talk, features). The bad news again is that they are so great that the motivation for exploring other channels of musical input gets close to zero (economies of scaled listening pleasures at work here).