“Journeys by DJ” (the world’s first series of legit DJ-mix CDs) was started by Tim Fielding in 1992…

A disciple of the Balearic school of DJing and the Ladbroke Grove music scene, Tim was a central figure at two of London’s most storied clubs: The Brain and The End. He co-founded Brainiak Records (which released the “Live at the Brain” LPs featuring the first known recordings of Techno bands performing live) and produced legendary works by DJs including John Digweed, Paul Oakenfold, Farley & Heller, Coldcut, and Gilles Peterson, reflecting his own eclectic taste and broad range in music.

In 1999, Tim left London for New York City, where he spins regularly at clubs and events for the likes of Disorient, Kostume Kult, House of Yes, and Mirage Garage. Transitioning from Nu Disco into soulful Tech House, Tim’s style goes down equally well with 90s Progressive House cats, fans of 70s Funk, and Burners into their bumpin’ beats. A self-described ‘fat female gospel singer trapped in a skinny white man’s body’, he plays rootsy music for people who like to dance. Not just standing there nodding, but really shaking that ass. “The Journeys by DJ vibe comes alive in smaller rooms and secret tents,” he says, “Which are usually packed with smiling faces, and people who are seriously getting down.”

With Libalula—Tim’s custom-built, BassBoss-powered, Burning Man-inspired art car and sound system—touring UK music festivals next summer, Journeys by DJ is officially back on the road!

The Story So Far

Journeys by DJ’s roots go back to the 80s in Bristol, UK,  where a teenage Tim Fielding, avid fan of local punk and reggae bands, was hooked by the Funk after hearing Earth, Wind and Fire jam live on Radio West.

This thunderbolt led to throwing student bashes at a cave-like club in Oxford, where he operated the strobe and smoke machine with one hand while spinning the likes of Talking Heads, Prince, Bohannon, and New Order with the other. His first big gig was at London’s club Heaven in 1986, when all these influences were morphing into House music. In 1988, he returned to Heaven for Spectrum, the Ibiza-fuelled melting pot that was alchemizing a cauldron of cultural forces into a national insurgency called Acid House, and there he found his tribe.

With his first day job at Notting Hill’s Record Exchange, Tim started writing for Mixmag and Soul Underground, tracing the roots of West London’s progressive house sound back to its local influences in Dub. Teaming up with Smart Boys FM in ‘89, he threw Club Sandwich at the Vauxhall Arches. He then joined Sean McLusky’s iconoclastic club The Brain, which provided an early platform for the likes of Orbital, Leftfield, Seal, Moby, The Shamen, Andrew Weatherall, A Guy Called Gerald, Roger S, and Graham Park, to name a few. 

Tim toured under the Brain banner to NYC, Berlin, and Moscow, opening his ears to fresh sounds during a prolific period of invention on the underground music scene. On his imprint Brainiak Records, he released seminal tracks by Ultramarine, Charles Webster, Hi-Ryze, Infinite Wheel, Deep Joy, Blue Jean, and Doi-oing - and notably “Live at the Brain”, the first ever album of live MIDI performances. Due credit to Sean, Linda, Wigan, and the Brain collective, and to Duncan Forbes, who poured his energy into Brainiak before signing as Spooky to Guerrilla Records.

In late 1992, following a revelatory moment in Glastonbury’s experimental sound field, and many road trips to Manchester’s Hacienda with mixtapes of Tony Humphries’ Kiss FM radio show, Tim launched Journeys by DJ (JDJ), the first series of its kind: well-produced, copyright-cleared, DJ-approved, full-length mixes by John Digweed, Farley & Heller, DJ Rap, Paul Oakenfold, Danny Rampling, Rocky & Diesel, Judge Jules and the mix album to end them all, Coldcut’s ’70 Minutes of Madness’. The first edition was by Brain resident Billy Nasty, who had been doing a roaring trade with his own mixtapes at Camden Market around the corner from his day job at Zoom Records.

Coining the term ‘Disco-ordinator’ to describe his role as editor/producer, creative director and playlist sounding-board, Tim pioneered many of the mix album methods that are now common practice, from the editing application Pro Tools (with essential handling by sound guru Jay ‘Planet Rock’ Burnett at Boundary Row Studios) to the correct way for retailers to rack the CDs in the store. Refusing to call them ‘compilations’, Tim pushed for DJ mixes to be recognized for the art of telling stories through music. JDJ eventually gained tangible respect from the UK press with a Justin Robertson mixtape on the cover of Select magazine (a teaser for Justin’s CD-Scape JDJ album), another first from the defining era of Electronica.

In 1995, Tim invested in The End. The state-of-the-art London venue had an indelible impact on DJ culture, providing a platform for the likes of Fatboy Slim, Laurent Garnier, Carl Cox, Sven Vath, and countless others, spawning its own genre - Tech House - and giving serious clubbers a proper place to go 6 nights per week for 14 years. Tim remained a director alongside Mr C and Layo until its closure on a splendidly high note in January 2009.

The mid-90s saw Tim fronting a monthly JDJ night at The End -  Triptonite - promoted by his sister Anabel at Marching Management. JDJ toured around the UK and Europe, appearing at marquee events such as Notting Hill Carnival and Cannes Film Festival. They launched a design studio to service fellow labels like Metalheadz, and broadcast Tim’s Dr Brainiak show on pirate station Face FM. This evolved into Interface.co.uk – one of the Web’s first dance music ‘radio’ stations. 

With help from Tomato Records’ Tim “Colonel” Reeves, Tim produced JDJ After Hours (released by Twisted/MCA in the USA in 1998), a series of deeper jazzy mixes that anticipated the global trend for lounge club vibes, and the Ultimate House Party CDs, combined sales of which topped 150,000 worldwide. These albums showcased the mixing talents of Jay Chappell, JDJ’s in-house deckmeister, who was joined on the roster by Andrew Galea, Tomislav, and Jason Moore - the Triptonite triumvirate. 

It was a prolific period for Journeys by DJ. Thanks to the licensing prowess of label manager Jo Beckett, JDJ added international releases from Keoki and DJ Duke - a partnership with Moonshine Music in the USA - and DJs Dimitri and Westbam - the two legends from Amsterdam and Berlin, respectively. After Paul ‘Trouble’ Anderson released a JDJ vinyl EP, his former NW1 rave buddy Judge Jules returned from his stint on JDJ2 to throw down Dance Wars, a double CD duel with Quadrant Park’s mercurial John Kelly, also notable for Simon Cornick’s fabulous lenticular sleeve design (Rogan Jeans having crafted the original JDJ lozenge logo). 

Closing a loop that opened several years before when Brainiak rented office space in the back of Acid Jazz on Denmark St, Gilles Peterson and Norman Jay rounded off the series in peerless style with ‘Desert Island Mix’ - the first time this famous duo featured on record, and a masterclass in how to take the listener on a musical meander through imaginary lands.

After licensing the JDJ catalog to Richard Branson’s new V2 label, Tim moved to New York in 1999. He released Ley Lines, another mix album, and partnered with Wilson Fong, recently arrived from working with Manumission in Ibiza. Recognizing the talent of Nicholas Matar, then resident DJ at Pacha, they signed him up to relaunch the series in the States with a hot new mix, Latitude 40. Soon after Nicholas opened Cielo, they released mixes for the acclaimed club as it ushered in a fresh chapter for NYC nightlife. The new-look JDJ outfit added techno maestro John Selway and DJ Touché of The Wiseguys and was just picking up steam when the business went down in the record industry crash of 2004.

The journey was heading for a fork in the road. The quest for new sounds and experiences led to the Black Rock Desert, where Burning Man provided a monumental platform for artists and DJs to do their thing in the dust. Sound camps like Disorient and Robot Heart were bringing the vibe back to Brooklyn with a new wave of warehouse parties. Tim teamed up with Kostume Kult, deploying a new sound system that powered a memorable night in Williamsburg, captured on his final mix CD, “Loft Party—New York” (Kinkysweet, 2006). He appeared alongside Francois K for Disorient on the playa and headlined for Kostume Kult at the NYC Halloween Parade. He co-produced the soundtrack of “Spark,” a documentary about Burning Man, and founded a sound camp that would evolve into Mirage Garage.

Meanwhile, advances in technology were generating opportunities for innovation. As A&R for DVD Audio at Chris Blackwell’s Palm Pictures, Tim contributed to the Grammy-winning project ‘One Giant Leap,’ a multimedia trip around the world, collecting beats and samples along the way. In 2007, he issued his first downloadable mix via the Ingrooves platform: Ley Lines 2. He programmed Flux, an early mobile phone content store, for MTV Networks, then joined a start-up venture that provided a Shazam clone to Verizon, and developed Dropcast, a GPS-enhanced app for sharing tracks on Google Maps. Come the COVID lockdown, he was livestreaming DJ sets on Vizee and performing “Journey to Jupiter,” a virtual cruise through the cosmos on High Fidelity’s spatial web platform, in collaboration with NASA’s Mission Juno. 

In 2019, he played one of the final sets at Root Society’s epic stage in Black Rock City, alongside compadres Mr. C and Darren Emerson. He played for Cymatica at Love Burn in 2023 and most recently appeared at the House of Yes takeover of Industry City—City of Gods—spinning out of his mutant vehicle, The Flying Scotty.

With Libalula, Tim’s custom-designed, BassBoss-powered, Burning Man-style art car/sound system, many of the above strands - music, travel, stories, design, and innovation -  have been coming together. They’ll be touring music festivals in the UK & Europe next summer.

The journey continues, and JDJ is officially back on the road again.

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