The intriguing collaboration of Sam Barker and Andreas Baumecker has already produced some mesmerizing results. Their debut release ‘Candyflip’ touches upon techno, house, trance, broken beat, IDM and dub styles during one 9-minute dancefloor opus, yet despite referencing this multitude of genres, their clear intent was to throw away the rulebook and write their own.
Not at all surprising when you understand the pair’s background in music and the journeys they have been on; hailing from Frankfurt and residing in Berlin, Andreas began DJing as nd_baumecker in the early 90’s. Refusing to stick to one sound, his DJ sets have always crossed borders, effortlessly entering new sonic worlds at every turn. He was a regular guest DJ at the original Ostgut club until it was flattened to make way for a hulking commercial concert arena in 2003. Since its re-opening as Berghain/Panorama Bar a year later at its current location, Baumecker has been resident DJ, booker and a key member of the Berghain family.
Sam Barker grew up learning every instrument he could get his hands on and by age 13 he had started with his own electronic productions. In 2002 he moved to Brighton to study music, and became involved with the flourishing experimental scene there. He started promoting his own events under the name ‘Instrumentality’, encouraging improvisation, collaboration and electronic experiments there every week for four years. During this time he built up a sizeable collection of analogue hardware that became the backbone for his work as Voltek. In 2006 he started work for Ned Beckett at the Littlebig agency and a year later moved with the company to Berlin.
Now Barker & Baumecker miraculously found a way to consolidate the whole spectrum of their sound into 11 tracks on their multi-faceted debut album ‘Transsektoral‘.
Below is their live set up, try to spot the goodies!