If you’ve been around Dalston’s Gillet Square recently, you would have noticed something has got the air in this regular vagrant’s hangout stirred. In one of those shacks there’s something special going down. Something people are calling NTS. It’s a new radio station, and it’s getting people pretty excited.

Now, describing it should be fairly easy. I mean, it’s an internet radio station, and we’ve all seen those come and go. What’s harder to put into words though is what it sounds like. Every show is so different you might as well set up camp on the sofa for the rest of the day and try to soak in as much as possible.

I know what you’re saying, and not only because I’m the all-seeing eye – this doesn’t really seem like anything phenomenal. Setting up an internet radio station is easy right? If you spent the rest of the day attempting to get something together from your bedroom, you wouldn’t be all that far away from getting something together. Only problem is you’re already on your sofa listening to NTS, and can you really be arsed to go all the way upstairs.

The key to NTS’s success so far seems is down to those behind it. Clare Urbahn and Femi Adeyemi birthed the idea for the station from a combination of the Nuts To Soup blog and a procession of opportunities thrown their way. They were offered the space for the station, and were enthused to be doing what they’d always hoped to do with their lives. With Clare having previously worked for commercial stations until she couldn’t take it anymore, and Femi losing all but everything of his need to pursue a career in digital marketing – they started hitting people up left, right and centre to contribute equipment or to host shows.

The really interesting thing about what they’ve managed to get together though is the feel of a community in the station. Without getting too misty eyed or cultish about it – everyone involved seems incredibly like-minded in why they want to do it, and it feeds through to the broadcasts. Everyone so far is only really linked by the fact they live in London (though there are plans to start getting people involved worldwide) and they they’ve got something they want to share, but when you listen you get the feeling between shows they’re cracking jokes or getting blunted or something like that. I guess you could say it’s got a character as a station, and I like that.

Up until now the words ‘radio’ and ‘London’ seemed synonymous with only one station. Rinse FM understandably has been running things since the earliest days of grime, and that is unlikely to change any time soon – what with all the going legal and singles charting all over the place.

Essentially, Rinse is a different platform to what it used to be though – and the schedule replicates this. It’s all stepped up a gear, and many listeners have been left with a gap to fill. This is no bad thing; in fact, I’d it’s a really good thing. The music we all enjoy is being taken to a new audience, a wholly more global audience. Look how dubstep blew up, you’d have to be dumb to realise Rinse wasn’t the key player in that. For those with a need for hearing something a little more underground though, something a little weirder, that isn’t being pasted all over the guardian – NTS seems to be finding fans rapidly.

Whereas Rinse is always chasing the hot new thing, NTS seems to showcase a more varied palette of sound – and in the current state of music, that’s no bad place to be. All i’m saying is that funky is in a pretty dull state of affairs, grime is looking after itself and the key innovators are still doing what they do best, dubstep is either crap or getting incredibly darksided, and everything else is trying to be pinned down all over the shop and nobody really cares what it’s called.

People are listening to music differently though, so now it feels like the need for a wider remit of shows is possible. What with everything being podcasted for you to delve into as and when, you don’t take chances on radio in it’s live form. Who cares if you miss something? You can download it hours later, rip out the best bits, upload them to youtube and you’ll be hailed as the musical epitaph you deserve to be for the rest of the week. You’ve no need to trawl through the airwaves to find what you want to listen to.

Part of me wants it all to come full circle and relate back to the golden age of pirates. The rat race of building your station, competing against others to make yours the dopest thing around. Now you have all the choice in the world of what you can listen to, is that even possible? I suppose the element of being taken off air at any moment by the police has gone – which made for great documentary fodder, but I’m sure most are glad not to have to scale tower block roofs anymore. Now it seems that the future of pirates is more like big company competition instead of raw, face-to-face turf war.

That Boiler Room thing also seems to add a dimension to the whole music listening in or around your house idea. It’s roots lie in yardcasting which kinda romantically refers back to the DIY approach of pirate radio. The thing I like most about it all though is being able to see where it’s all broadcasted from. It feeds that want I think almost everyone who listened to pirates had of wanting to see where the station was, or what the DJ’s looked like – who were the guys risking arrest just so you could hear their music? It was yardcasting that finally broke down that barrier, allowing you an insight into your favourite DJ’s most personal space. I guess it’s different things to different people though. A lot of people have said there piece about what we’re doing with that room. For us though, it’s always been about the broadcast.

(To go a little off topic for a sec, you can see the old rinse studio in this episode of Faking It. Pretty cool eh..)

So, where does NTS fall into all of this? Essentially it isn’t attempting to be an innovator or to herald a new sound. It’s aiming to be something you can listen to, non-stop, all day long – and in so comes across as something fresh. For those who love radio but have recently been left a little bemused, it fills in the gaps. The fact you’ll tune in purely because it’s NTS, and not because that new flavour is pouring out of it for the next 2, is something that we’ve been waiting upon for some time. All I know is it got me thinking about the way music is consumed nowadays, and how rapidly genre’s, platforms and listening methods are changing. It’s all kinda scary. Especially if you like blowing your wages on vinyl.

I would hate this to be seen as a diss on Rinse or any similar station, as there are still shows on there I will gladly leave a social situation early to catch live. It’s been a big part of my life for nearly a decade, and much like discrediting my own mum; I would never discredit what Rinse do (although, I think MC’s have called my Mum pretty much everything horrible under the sun by now).

What about the rest though? I know Deja Vu exists, but does anyone really lock to it? Ministry of Sound radio sends chills down my spine. Resonance seems aimed at a wholly more poignant demographic than myself. What else have I forgotten? Well, that says as much in itself doesn’t it.

I’m talking from a very personal perspective when I say NTS seems to be a revelation in listening tendencies. Though based on everyone I’ve spoken to about it – and the feedback the station has had since it’s launch – I wouldn’t say I’m totally alone in this. It seems like these guys have really tapped into a good thing, with a really good network of people behind it. I guess now we can just sit back and watch it grow. Just don’t try and put your finger on what it is, you might just kill it.

photos: Kingsley Ifill

words: Charles Drakeford