A DJ wakes up to a new day

On weeknights, as Jason Bentley sits in KCRW's basement studios, building a city of the mind out of music, he often gets feedback from listeners tuning in around Southern California and across the globe. Some are artists engaged in their own solitary labors. Others are weary night-shift workers and jazzed-up club kids, floating down the freeways on a river of sound. A few are restless souls on the other side of the world, where the sun has already risen, firing off electronic messages in bottles from Shanghai, Guam, Europe.

Most are strangers, tapping out communiques on their iPhones and laptops, but a number are friends and colleagues who say that "Metropolis," Bentley's popular show of electronica, dance music and whatever else he decides to stir into the mix, has remapped their aural horizons. "He doesn't like this part, but sometimes when I'm driving at night I'll text-message him because I'll be literally dancing in my car," says Johanna Rees, who programs special concerts and presentations for the Hollywood Bowl and Walt Disney Concert Hall.

Then there are the lovers, making after-dark confessions to the smooth-voiced man behind the mike. "For some reason, people like to tell me that they've had some sexual encounter," Bentley says. "They're like, 'Dude! We just had sex in the back of my car to that last set!' "

Bentley laughs. "Music is powerful stuff. People are looking for inspiration, and that really makes me happy because that's what I'm trying to do, is inspire by music and be inspired by music."

For the last 16 years, Bentley, 38, has been delivering countless hours' worth of syncopated uplift via KCRW's Santa Monica-based signal (FM 89.9). With "Metropolis," a beat-rich concoction heavily influenced by his long tenure spinning records in clubs, he has constructed a soundscape that resembles the L.A. evening skyline: angular, futuristic and pulsing with nocturnal energy. On those occasions when the tempos all come together and the moods segue seamlessly, listeners might feel that, stepping into the night air, they've become characters in some ultra-chilled-out 21st century film noir.

He has come a long way with the station since joining as a phone volunteer in the summer of 1988. But soon Bentley will face a new challenge. This month, KCRW announced that on Dec. 1 he would be its new music director and host of the station's signature "Morning Becomes Eclectic" program, succeeding Nic Harcourt.