Exclusive: KCRW to Relaunch Metropolis with Original Host Jason Bentley

Electronic music program Metropolis is returning to KCRW with its original host Jason Bentley, West Coast Sound can exclusively report. The dance music show, which Bentley created and hosted from 1992 to 2008, will air Saturdays from 10pm to midnight, starting this Saturday. Bentley will maintain his role as the host of Morning Becomes Eclectic.

"People tell me all the time that they loved it," Bentley, KCRW's music director, says of Metropolis. "A lot of people have commented over the years how much that show meant to them, and that stayed in my mind."

Bentley's electronic music roots run deep, and Metropolis helped introduce the sound to Los Angeles and the country at large.

The program's return was precipitated by KCRW General Manager Jennifer Ferro's desire to demonstrate the station's commitment to the genre, which has become resurgent in recent years.

See also: We Attended the KCRW Pledge Drive - And Lived to Tell the Tale!

A Metropolis website, meanwhile, will be a multimedia portal of videos, interviews, livestreams and curated playlists from Spotify and Rdio. It will also host exclusive videos and segments like the Electrospective documentary series, which focuses on the history of electronic music since 1958, and to which Bentley is a contributor.

"There is a whole new generation of EDM fans, and I think it's important to give [the genre] some context," Bentley says. "Your gateway may be Skrillex or Avicii, but there's some real depth there. I definitely want to cast a balance between older and more established names and newer people on the scene. I want to showcase artists that are really saying something interesting."

Reviving Metropolis also gives Bentley -- a regular club and festival DJ who is performing at Coachella again this year -- a creative outlet beyond that of the indie music heavy Morning Becomes Eclectic.

"With MBE, I've needed to really contain the amount of outright dance music and electronic music. Each of the three former music directors and hosts of the show have put their fingerprints on it in a certain way, and very likely my fingerprints have been towards electronic music or club culture atmosphere, but this will give me an opportunity to play a lot of music that I just can't find appropriate for MBE."

Below: Bentley talks about Coachella 2013