how did i get here

BARKER mixes are few and far between here on the 'cloud but we are super proud that this genre bender is gracing our 3024 TAPES series, enjoy & spread the word!


3024: Please describe the mix in a single sentence ?

I thought I’d make a mix in the currently popular yet controversial 140-160bpm range, as there’s some amazing music in this space between techno and jungle that doesn’t revolve around straight kicks, and I think it deserves more attention.

3024: What DJ inspires you at the moment / has inspired you throughout the years and why?

Throughout the years.. well apart from this guy Martyn I’d have to say Andi Baumecker. I don’t know many DJs with such a depth of knowledge across so many genres. His passion for music is relentless and continuously inspiring.

Recently I’ve been really into Polygonia. Brilliant producer and DJ from Munich creating ethereal worlds through sound so convincing you can almost step into them. I went to see her open Berghain last September and it was incredible, like being in a rainforest on acid. 

3024: What are you working on / what have you got forthcoming?

There’s a new EP coming this summer which will be announced soon, and a few remixes before that, for Jakojako and Hercules & Love Affair (with Mr Baumecker). Otherwise, I’m having fun developing a new live set involving MIDI controlled lights, which I premiered at Superbooth last week.

Support the artists! Click the BuyMusicClub link for tracklist (and shopping)

BuyMusicClub

3024 TAPES 005 : Barker

Hooked Paw

Everything Squared

Multifolds

Lose The Minus

@Wordcolour returns to Houndstooth with ‘Ratios III’, the third instalment of their ‘Ratios’ series. Released in 2023, Ratios I and II kick-started a series of two-track EPs of adventurous, experimental club music. Ratios III continues this trend whilst also being Wordcolour’s most peak-time offering to date.

‘Crush’ (04th Sept) is a 130bpm cut which features an infectious vocal set against a pounding polyrhythmic kick. The sub-heavy groove builds in energy before turning on its head half-way through, rocketing upwards through a polyrhythmic shift into a 170ish 4/4 beatdown with a vicious bassline.

‘Rapture’ (Sept 13th) sees Wordcolour turn their attention to psychedelic loopy techno. Diving deeper into microtonality, Wordcolour reimagines the music and sound design written for Andrea Khora’s 2024 short film of the same name.

Ratios III

Crush

Buy me

Wordcolour - Crush

Another Barker masterclass.

Sam Barker asks more from techno. The artist known simply as Barker is one of electronic music's most consistently conscientious and curious producers, challenging listeners to question the norms we accept about our shared culture—whether it's the music that fills the room, the process behind it, or the purpose of the space itself.

British-born yet based in Berlin since 2007, Barker forged a connection to many of the city's leading institutions, including Ostgut Ton, and over the course of a long and fruitful relationship, he carved out one of the more singular paths on the club and label's roster.

Not one for orthodoxy, Barker challenged four-to-the-floor techno framework in favor of melodic experimentation. By decentering or completely stripping away the typical trappings of kick drums and claps, his productions are both light and immersive, buoyant in low-end presence and shimmering in weightless space.

Six years after Utility, his sophomore album Stochastic Drift arrives this month. Shaped by pandemic-driven reinvention, it burrows deeper into harmonic twists and freeform drift. "At some point I became conscious of the process," he wrote of his latest album. "The only thing you can do is embrace the uncertainty and see every change as a potential positive.”

Consider his RA Podcast another sequel. Like his much-beloved 2019 mix for FACT, it's a collage of live recordings and a fitting expression of the artist's own internal spring. RA.982 radiates wide-eyed optimism: percussion cloaked in foggy, swirling pads and trance-like chords, neatly synched in synthetic glimmers. 

All in all, it's an hour of music crafted for contemplation, collective euphoria, or heads-down epiphany—or for that matter, any moment, really, its emotive depth seemingly endless.

@voltek

Find the tracklist and Q&A at ra.co/podcast/982

RA.982 Barker

Full tracklist: https://bleep.com/bleep-mix-305-adam-wiltzie

Flying through funk, soul, psychedelia, and enchanting soundtracks, Adam Wiltzie commemorates the 30th anniversary of Stars of the Lid’s debut Music for Nitrous Oxide with a mix mirroring the album’s spaciousness and throbbing rawness. The lurching guitars of Wiltzie’s Windsor For The Derby band pace out a textural abyss, allowing for the hushed, gentle twitches of Loscil’s ‘Sticky’ to slowly expand as frost growing on a windowpane, and the fluid melismatic bansuri of Hariprasaf Chaurasia to unravel throughout much of the mix. Smooth organ glides and lush harmonies later lead to a convergence of dextrous, emotive guitar plucks on vAntonio Pinto**’s cinematically swelling ‘Maradona Childhood’.

“It was great fun while it lasted but unfortunately it only lasted a short time. I am appreciative that after all these decades we can return & acknowledge this time capsule from my past & for the mix i suppose If a song is worth anything, its about the life of the listener....”

Bleep Mix #305 - Adam Wiltzie

Buy (vinyl / digital): https://nebleena.bandcamp.com/album/no-right-or-wrong-way-forward
(Album Sampler) Sweguno presents his debut album ‘No Right Or Wrong Way Forward‘. 8 tracks of genre-blurring electronic music with a distinct vocal presence permeating the whole. Both oppressively dense and achingly delicate, NROWWF is a sonic treatise on our contemporary world, its agonies and ecstasies.

Available physically as a vinyl record, & to stream/digitally purchase. Mastered by Sean Price, and released with Nebleena.

No Right Or Wrong Way Forward

No Right Or Wrong Way Forward (Album Sampler)

RA goes beatless: The Orb provide a chillout podcast to start off 2009.

RA.136 The Orb

Autechre - Basscadet (Fingersnag mix)

Buy my debut album 'No Right Or Wrong Way Forward' here: https://nebleena.bandcamp.com/

Sweguno is the solo musical project of Dan Ainslie, a Canadian electronic musician currently residing in Northern California.

Drawing inspiration from live-looping musicians such as Robert A. A. Lowe, and the classic electronic vanguard of Warp, Skam, & Rephlex, Dan uses his voice as an instrumental lead. The vocal, largely untethered to language, is used to convey melody, emotion, and texture, alongside rhythmic & melodic elements both sampled & bespoke. The resulting music, whether heard on a dance floor, chill-out room, or immersed in headphones, is creatively insular, and entirely genuine.

Dan has released music on numerous labels, and in 2019 toured North America with longtime Warp Records recording artists Seefeel as an opening act. His debut album ‘No Right Or Wrong Way Forward‘ is out now.

Business contact: sweguno@gmail.com