Tim Fielding
began DJ’ing and promoting in 1985 at a dingy club in Oxford,
trying his best to operate the smoke machine while mixing
stuff like Talking Heads, Prince and New
Order with James Brown, Hugh Masekela,
Misty in Roots, Bohannon and the evolving sounds of
electrofunk. He played at London’s leading club Heaven
in 1986 and a number of warehouse and Acid House parties in
the late ‘80s, before spinning his way around Asia and Africa.
In 1989 Tim established “Club
Sandwich” at London’s Vauxhall Arches, then set up at
Soho’s legendary Techno club The Brain. He toured with
The Brain to New York in 1991 and to Berlin and Moscow in
1992. During this period Tim appeared at venues around the UK
and abroad, cutting his teeth alongside many of The Brain’s
early performers who have gone onto great things: Orbital,
Leftfield, Billy Nasty, Moby, Graeme Park, The Shamen,
Mixmaster Morris, Andrew Weatherall, A Guy Called Gerald,
Roger S., to name a few.
The driving force behind
Brainiak Records, Tim released music by such early UK
electronic heroes as Ultramarine, Doi-oing, Lazonby and
Infinite Wheel, as well as legendary London promoter
Sean McLusky’s Live at the Brain series and eventually
B-Sides, The Best of Brainiak. In 1992 Tim launched
Journeys By DJ (JDJ), the world’s first
DJ-mix series on CD featuring the first-ever commercially
available mixes from the likes of Danny Rampling,
John Digweed, Farley & Heller, Justin Robertson,
Judge Jules and Paul Oakenfold - and the mix
album to end them all, Coldcut’s 70 Minutes of
Madness.
The mid-90s saw Tim focus on
production and development of the JDJ series, restricting
DJing to larger events like Love Parade, Notting Hill Carnival
and Cannes Film Festival. In 1995, he produced After
Hours (domestically released by Twisted in 1998), a
series of laid-back jazzy House albums, and the Ultimate
House Party series, combined sales of which topped
150,000 worldwide.
In 1995, Tim invested in the
launch of London’s leading nightclub, The End, where he
is a director alongside partners Mr. C and Layo
Paskin (of Layo & Bushwacka!). He appeared regularly at
the Saturday night party there – Triptonite, on
Journeys By DJ tours around the UK and Europe, and on his
Thursday “Dr. Brainiak” show on pirate station Face FM.
Having moved to New York City
in 1998, Tim can be heard regularly at venues such as Heat,
Lotus and CentroFly and Journeys by DJ’s monthly
residencies in Las Vegas (Club Utopia), Mexico and Peru
(Home), as well as various clubs back in the UK and
Ibiza. He also contributes to a number of magazines (Black
Book, Gear, Zoetrope etc) and is developing a multimedia
DJ-mix project to be unveiled in 2002. With Ley Lines,
Tim Fielding makes another first by putting his name on the
front of an album for the first time.
