By Simon W. Vozick-Levinson

Back in the late ’80s, Ben Watt and Tracey Thorn began releasing smooth, jazzy ballads under the name Everything But The Girl. The stylistic 180 that the power couple executed a few years later ranks as one of pop’s great plug-ins, somewhere behind Dylan at Newport in ’65. Surrendering themselves to the power of the remix, Thorn and Watt played a pivotal part in selling the masses on the idea of programmed beats as the logical extension of their acoustic vibes—a new ultimate in chilled-out sophistication.

With EBTG on hiatus since 1999, Watt has settled into the somewhat unlikely role of an elder statesman in Britain’s underground DJ scene. For the last three years, he’s provided a cozy home for cutting-edge house at Buzzin’ Fly Records, where he is creative director and A&R chief. Buzzin’ Fly Volume III, compiled and seamlessly mixed by Watt himself, showcases the latest bionic fruits of those labors.

Artists from two continents’ far-flung electronic hubs, most of them Watt signees, decorate the mix’s four-on-the-floor pulse with a king’s ransom of synthesized baubles. Toronto-based Fairmont’s “Gazebo (Intro Loop)” kicks it off with an icy trickle of harmony, precise as the water loosed by the pressure of a skate’s blade. It lasts all of 16 seconds before easing into “Old Soul,” the first of several poignant poems composed by Watt and recited by Philly rapper Baby Blak: “While I drop my head in a strange kind of respect/I feel my driven heart pump and connect/Even now a muscle raw and unprepared for all this transparency.” Watt’s words give the mix an unusual lyrical heft, but it’s never too weighty for the dancefloor: soon as “Gazebo” returns for a full run-through, the beat pogoes freely toward the sky. Watt builds the percussive rhythms from there, swarming the speakers with the sinister Lisbon-bred honks of Darkmountaingroup’s “Lose Control.”

The title of “Attack Attack Attack” promises more violence after that peak. Instead, understated piano and strings surround Baby Blak as he weaves Watt’s meditations back into the mix. The tracks that follow, many swathed in ambient gauze, come down without nodding off. Everything unwinds with “One Week in Cuba,” where Moscow’s Kayot finds utopia in a simple, placid pattern of keys and cloudbursts. As the last echoes fade, you get the sense that Watt could keep spinning for hours without getting bored, or boring. The two unique DJsets he has planned next week will no doubt prove that he can.

Aug. 1 & 3. Cielo, 18 Little W. 12th St. (betw. Washington St. & 9th Ave.), 212-645-5700; 10, $20/$23.