Barker
Stochastic Drift
Boomkat Product Review:
Barker's most satisfying full-length yet, 'Stochastic Drift' unfolds like a galaxy-brained, hypnogogic afters playlist, blending the best bits of Eno, Mark Fell, Aleksi Perälä, Hiroshi Yoshimura, Squarepusher, Sasha and Photek to figure out a verdant mid-point between various tangled sounds and concepts - equal temperament and xenharmonic experimentation, automation and human expression, beats and ambience.
It would have been way too easy for Sam Barker to simply keep rehashing the beatless trance template he perfected on 2018's revered 'Debiasing'. But as we noticed on 2023's 'Unfixed' EP, his first release for Smalltown, Barker's relentless research and development makes his music as fluid and mutable as his palette of sounds. There's a distinctive character to what he does, and this gives him the freedom to traverse vastly different territory with relative ease. On that last record, finely manicured remnants of Gescom, Orbital, AFX and MMM coalesced into an engaging study of dancefloor rhythmelodics - almost as an answer to anyone still hung up on 'Debiasing'. And he widens his gaze on 'Stochastic Drift', studying the canon and responding with a style that's neither one thing nor the other. Barker's an artist who's acutely aware of his history and isn't afraid to show his work - the references aren't the critical part, it's the process itself that's most important.
'Force of Habit' is a fine example of this; on the surface, it's spot welded remnants of Art of Noise, SND and 808 Mafia, with reverberating glassy stabs, canned chorals, clipped steps and sub rupturing emo-rap bass, but if that's the case, why is it so easy to place as Barker's work? Similarly, he harks back to his best-known release with 'Reframing', a track that, in the press release's own words, is "a brittle reimagining of Sasha's eternal prog trance standard 'Xpander'," yet it neither sounds exactly like 'Debiasing' or its stated inspiration. It's the confidence that gets us - Barker manages to bottle the the kinetic euphoria of Sasha's original and leans into the fact that we all know it, fraying the edges with canny emphasis shifts and psychedelic contortions. Even when he tussles with odd tunings on 'Difference and Repetition' and 'Positive Disintegration', it's handled so casually that you almost don't notice it. Playing his fictile xenharmonic synths against dubstep-inspired snare snaps and dubby Dozzy-isms, you get lost in the mood, not snagged on the details.
And Barker keeps on proving his point, gesturing to Squarepusher with the skittering title track, a surge of Roland squiggles, plucked basses and jazzy fills, and Photek's moodiest downtempo moments on the noir-esque 'Fluid Mechanics'. His choice of instrumentation throughout keeps things coherent, and helps him obscure the divide between the main stage and the back room. It's not only removing a beat that can shift the assumed logic of a sound we think we know inside out, it's queering the pitch, skewing the rhythm or inverting the dynamics. By casting our mind back to some of the music we love best, and not just repackaging it but reframing (cough) it, he's gifted us an album that's as accessible as it is experimental. There's no gatekeeping here, and no IDM snobbiness - just pure vibes.
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Boomkat Product Review:
Barker's most satisfying full-length yet, 'Stochastic Drift' unfolds like a galaxy-brained, hypnogogic afters playlist, blending the best bits of Eno, Mark Fell, Aleksi Perälä, Hiroshi Yoshimura, Squarepusher, Sasha and Photek to figure out a verdant mid-point between various tangled sounds and concepts - equal temperament and xenharmonic experimentation, automation and human expression, beats and ambience.
It would have been way too easy for Sam Barker to simply keep rehashing the beatless trance template he perfected on 2018's revered 'Debiasing'. But as we noticed on 2023's 'Unfixed' EP, his first release for Smalltown, Barker's relentless research and development makes his music as fluid and mutable as his palette of sounds. There's a distinctive character to what he does, and this gives him the freedom to traverse vastly different territory with relative ease. On that last record, finely manicured remnants of Gescom, Orbital, AFX and MMM coalesced into an engaging study of dancefloor rhythmelodics - almost as an answer to anyone still hung up on 'Debiasing'. And he widens his gaze on 'Stochastic Drift', studying the canon and responding with a style that's neither one thing nor the other. Barker's an artist who's acutely aware of his history and isn't afraid to show his work - the references aren't the critical part, it's the process itself that's most important.
'Force of Habit' is a fine example of this; on the surface, it's spot welded remnants of Art of Noise, SND and 808 Mafia, with reverberating glassy stabs, canned chorals, clipped steps and sub rupturing emo-rap bass, but if that's the case, why is it so easy to place as Barker's work? Similarly, he harks back to his best-known release with 'Reframing', a track that, in the press release's own words, is "a brittle reimagining of Sasha's eternal prog trance standard 'Xpander'," yet it neither sounds exactly like 'Debiasing' or its stated inspiration. It's the confidence that gets us - Barker manages to bottle the the kinetic euphoria of Sasha's original and leans into the fact that we all know it, fraying the edges with canny emphasis shifts and psychedelic contortions. Even when he tussles with odd tunings on 'Difference and Repetition' and 'Positive Disintegration', it's handled so casually that you almost don't notice it. Playing his fictile xenharmonic synths against dubstep-inspired snare snaps and dubby Dozzy-isms, you get lost in the mood, not snagged on the details.
And Barker keeps on proving his point, gesturing to Squarepusher with the skittering title track, a surge of Roland squiggles, plucked basses and jazzy fills, and Photek's moodiest downtempo moments on the noir-esque 'Fluid Mechanics'. His choice of instrumentation throughout keeps things coherent, and helps him obscure the divide between the main stage and the back room. It's not only removing a beat that can shift the assumed logic of a sound we think we know inside out, it's queering the pitch, skewing the rhythm or inverting the dynamics. By casting our mind back to some of the music we love best, and not just repackaging it but reframing (cough) it, he's gifted us an album that's as accessible as it is experimental. There's no gatekeeping here, and no IDM snobbiness - just pure vibes.
Boomkat Product Review:
Barker's most satisfying full-length yet, 'Stochastic Drift' unfolds like a galaxy-brained, hypnogogic afters playlist, blending the best bits of Eno, Mark Fell, Aleksi Perälä, Hiroshi Yoshimura, Squarepusher, Sasha and Photek to figure out a verdant mid-point between various tangled sounds and concepts - equal temperament and xenharmonic experimentation, automation and human expression, beats and ambience.
It would have been way too easy for Sam Barker to simply keep rehashing the beatless trance template he perfected on 2018's revered 'Debiasing'. But as we noticed on 2023's 'Unfixed' EP, his first release for Smalltown, Barker's relentless research and development makes his music as fluid and mutable as his palette of sounds. There's a distinctive character to what he does, and this gives him the freedom to traverse vastly different territory with relative ease. On that last record, finely manicured remnants of Gescom, Orbital, AFX and MMM coalesced into an engaging study of dancefloor rhythmelodics - almost as an answer to anyone still hung up on 'Debiasing'. And he widens his gaze on 'Stochastic Drift', studying the canon and responding with a style that's neither one thing nor the other. Barker's an artist who's acutely aware of his history and isn't afraid to show his work - the references aren't the critical part, it's the process itself that's most important.
'Force of Habit' is a fine example of this; on the surface, it's spot welded remnants of Art of Noise, SND and 808 Mafia, with reverberating glassy stabs, canned chorals, clipped steps and sub rupturing emo-rap bass, but if that's the case, why is it so easy to place as Barker's work? Similarly, he harks back to his best-known release with 'Reframing', a track that, in the press release's own words, is "a brittle reimagining of Sasha's eternal prog trance standard 'Xpander'," yet it neither sounds exactly like 'Debiasing' or its stated inspiration. It's the confidence that gets us - Barker manages to bottle the the kinetic euphoria of Sasha's original and leans into the fact that we all know it, fraying the edges with canny emphasis shifts and psychedelic contortions. Even when he tussles with odd tunings on 'Difference and Repetition' and 'Positive Disintegration', it's handled so casually that you almost don't notice it. Playing his fictile xenharmonic synths against dubstep-inspired snare snaps and dubby Dozzy-isms, you get lost in the mood, not snagged on the details.
And Barker keeps on proving his point, gesturing to Squarepusher with the skittering title track, a surge of Roland squiggles, plucked basses and jazzy fills, and Photek's moodiest downtempo moments on the noir-esque 'Fluid Mechanics'. His choice of instrumentation throughout keeps things coherent, and helps him obscure the divide between the main stage and the back room. It's not only removing a beat that can shift the assumed logic of a sound we think we know inside out, it's queering the pitch, skewing the rhythm or inverting the dynamics. By casting our mind back to some of the music we love best, and not just repackaging it but reframing (cough) it, he's gifted us an album that's as accessible as it is experimental. There's no gatekeeping here, and no IDM snobbiness - just pure vibes.
Boomkat Product Review:
Barker's most satisfying full-length yet, 'Stochastic Drift' unfolds like a galaxy-brained, hypnogogic afters playlist, blending the best bits of Eno, Mark Fell, Aleksi Perälä, Hiroshi Yoshimura, Squarepusher, Sasha and Photek to figure out a verdant mid-point between various tangled sounds and concepts - equal temperament and xenharmonic experimentation, automation and human expression, beats and ambience.
It would have been way too easy for Sam Barker to simply keep rehashing the beatless trance template he perfected on 2018's revered 'Debiasing'. But as we noticed on 2023's 'Unfixed' EP, his first release for Smalltown, Barker's relentless research and development makes his music as fluid and mutable as his palette of sounds. There's a distinctive character to what he does, and this gives him the freedom to traverse vastly different territory with relative ease. On that last record, finely manicured remnants of Gescom, Orbital, AFX and MMM coalesced into an engaging study of dancefloor rhythmelodics - almost as an answer to anyone still hung up on 'Debiasing'. And he widens his gaze on 'Stochastic Drift', studying the canon and responding with a style that's neither one thing nor the other. Barker's an artist who's acutely aware of his history and isn't afraid to show his work - the references aren't the critical part, it's the process itself that's most important.
'Force of Habit' is a fine example of this; on the surface, it's spot welded remnants of Art of Noise, SND and 808 Mafia, with reverberating glassy stabs, canned chorals, clipped steps and sub rupturing emo-rap bass, but if that's the case, why is it so easy to place as Barker's work? Similarly, he harks back to his best-known release with 'Reframing', a track that, in the press release's own words, is "a brittle reimagining of Sasha's eternal prog trance standard 'Xpander'," yet it neither sounds exactly like 'Debiasing' or its stated inspiration. It's the confidence that gets us - Barker manages to bottle the the kinetic euphoria of Sasha's original and leans into the fact that we all know it, fraying the edges with canny emphasis shifts and psychedelic contortions. Even when he tussles with odd tunings on 'Difference and Repetition' and 'Positive Disintegration', it's handled so casually that you almost don't notice it. Playing his fictile xenharmonic synths against dubstep-inspired snare snaps and dubby Dozzy-isms, you get lost in the mood, not snagged on the details.
And Barker keeps on proving his point, gesturing to Squarepusher with the skittering title track, a surge of Roland squiggles, plucked basses and jazzy fills, and Photek's moodiest downtempo moments on the noir-esque 'Fluid Mechanics'. His choice of instrumentation throughout keeps things coherent, and helps him obscure the divide between the main stage and the back room. It's not only removing a beat that can shift the assumed logic of a sound we think we know inside out, it's queering the pitch, skewing the rhythm or inverting the dynamics. By casting our mind back to some of the music we love best, and not just repackaging it but reframing (cough) it, he's gifted us an album that's as accessible as it is experimental. There's no gatekeeping here, and no IDM snobbiness - just pure vibes.
Estimated Release Date: 04 April 2025
Please note that shipping dates for pre-orders are estimated and are subject to change
Boomkat Product Review:
Barker's most satisfying full-length yet, 'Stochastic Drift' unfolds like a galaxy-brained, hypnogogic afters playlist, blending the best bits of Eno, Mark Fell, Aleksi Perälä, Hiroshi Yoshimura, Squarepusher, Sasha and Photek to figure out a verdant mid-point between various tangled sounds and concepts - equal temperament and xenharmonic experimentation, automation and human expression, beats and ambience.
It would have been way too easy for Sam Barker to simply keep rehashing the beatless trance template he perfected on 2018's revered 'Debiasing'. But as we noticed on 2023's 'Unfixed' EP, his first release for Smalltown, Barker's relentless research and development makes his music as fluid and mutable as his palette of sounds. There's a distinctive character to what he does, and this gives him the freedom to traverse vastly different territory with relative ease. On that last record, finely manicured remnants of Gescom, Orbital, AFX and MMM coalesced into an engaging study of dancefloor rhythmelodics - almost as an answer to anyone still hung up on 'Debiasing'. And he widens his gaze on 'Stochastic Drift', studying the canon and responding with a style that's neither one thing nor the other. Barker's an artist who's acutely aware of his history and isn't afraid to show his work - the references aren't the critical part, it's the process itself that's most important.
'Force of Habit' is a fine example of this; on the surface, it's spot welded remnants of Art of Noise, SND and 808 Mafia, with reverberating glassy stabs, canned chorals, clipped steps and sub rupturing emo-rap bass, but if that's the case, why is it so easy to place as Barker's work? Similarly, he harks back to his best-known release with 'Reframing', a track that, in the press release's own words, is "a brittle reimagining of Sasha's eternal prog trance standard 'Xpander'," yet it neither sounds exactly like 'Debiasing' or its stated inspiration. It's the confidence that gets us - Barker manages to bottle the the kinetic euphoria of Sasha's original and leans into the fact that we all know it, fraying the edges with canny emphasis shifts and psychedelic contortions. Even when he tussles with odd tunings on 'Difference and Repetition' and 'Positive Disintegration', it's handled so casually that you almost don't notice it. Playing his fictile xenharmonic synths against dubstep-inspired snare snaps and dubby Dozzy-isms, you get lost in the mood, not snagged on the details.
And Barker keeps on proving his point, gesturing to Squarepusher with the skittering title track, a surge of Roland squiggles, plucked basses and jazzy fills, and Photek's moodiest downtempo moments on the noir-esque 'Fluid Mechanics'. His choice of instrumentation throughout keeps things coherent, and helps him obscure the divide between the main stage and the back room. It's not only removing a beat that can shift the assumed logic of a sound we think we know inside out, it's queering the pitch, skewing the rhythm or inverting the dynamics. By casting our mind back to some of the music we love best, and not just repackaging it but reframing (cough) it, he's gifted us an album that's as accessible as it is experimental. There's no gatekeeping here, and no IDM snobbiness - just pure vibes.
Transparent coloured vinyl.
Estimated Release Date: 04 April 2025
Please note that shipping dates for pre-orders are estimated and are subject to change
Boomkat Product Review:
Barker's most satisfying full-length yet, 'Stochastic Drift' unfolds like a galaxy-brained, hypnogogic afters playlist, blending the best bits of Eno, Mark Fell, Aleksi Perälä, Hiroshi Yoshimura, Squarepusher, Sasha and Photek to figure out a verdant mid-point between various tangled sounds and concepts - equal temperament and xenharmonic experimentation, automation and human expression, beats and ambience.
It would have been way too easy for Sam Barker to simply keep rehashing the beatless trance template he perfected on 2018's revered 'Debiasing'. But as we noticed on 2023's 'Unfixed' EP, his first release for Smalltown, Barker's relentless research and development makes his music as fluid and mutable as his palette of sounds. There's a distinctive character to what he does, and this gives him the freedom to traverse vastly different territory with relative ease. On that last record, finely manicured remnants of Gescom, Orbital, AFX and MMM coalesced into an engaging study of dancefloor rhythmelodics - almost as an answer to anyone still hung up on 'Debiasing'. And he widens his gaze on 'Stochastic Drift', studying the canon and responding with a style that's neither one thing nor the other. Barker's an artist who's acutely aware of his history and isn't afraid to show his work - the references aren't the critical part, it's the process itself that's most important.
'Force of Habit' is a fine example of this; on the surface, it's spot welded remnants of Art of Noise, SND and 808 Mafia, with reverberating glassy stabs, canned chorals, clipped steps and sub rupturing emo-rap bass, but if that's the case, why is it so easy to place as Barker's work? Similarly, he harks back to his best-known release with 'Reframing', a track that, in the press release's own words, is "a brittle reimagining of Sasha's eternal prog trance standard 'Xpander'," yet it neither sounds exactly like 'Debiasing' or its stated inspiration. It's the confidence that gets us - Barker manages to bottle the the kinetic euphoria of Sasha's original and leans into the fact that we all know it, fraying the edges with canny emphasis shifts and psychedelic contortions. Even when he tussles with odd tunings on 'Difference and Repetition' and 'Positive Disintegration', it's handled so casually that you almost don't notice it. Playing his fictile xenharmonic synths against dubstep-inspired snare snaps and dubby Dozzy-isms, you get lost in the mood, not snagged on the details.
And Barker keeps on proving his point, gesturing to Squarepusher with the skittering title track, a surge of Roland squiggles, plucked basses and jazzy fills, and Photek's moodiest downtempo moments on the noir-esque 'Fluid Mechanics'. His choice of instrumentation throughout keeps things coherent, and helps him obscure the divide between the main stage and the back room. It's not only removing a beat that can shift the assumed logic of a sound we think we know inside out, it's queering the pitch, skewing the rhythm or inverting the dynamics. By casting our mind back to some of the music we love best, and not just repackaging it but reframing (cough) it, he's gifted us an album that's as accessible as it is experimental. There's no gatekeeping here, and no IDM snobbiness - just pure vibes.
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