Barker

(This article’s English version was produced with AI-assisted translation)

The term stochastic originates in mathematics and refers to phenomena involving chance and probability. In music, it becomes the art of the unpredictable: a realm where sounds take shape through computational calculations. First evoked by composer and architect Iannis Xenakis, this method now finds its most radical incarnations in SuperCollider or Max/MSP, musical programming languages that have shaped the methodology of the boldest among electronic demiurges (Autechre first and foremost). The goal seems simple: to forge sonic entities that decide for themselves, with the artist as both architect of the code and guardian of the perimeter in which everything happens.

In "Stochastic Drift", the incantation of aleatory sound becomes a mirror of human uncertainty and the shadows of the post-pandemic world. Barker reflects on his own vulnerability and on a life suspended between unemployment and rediscovery. He does so through his signature drumless-techno, which already emerged as a native language in the luminous and enveloping "Utility" (2019). Now, Sam Barker crafts self-generating instruments: he turns into a digital artisan, a druid of circuits, evoking nocturnal landscapes infused with a future-trance aesthetic—as if Lorenzo Senni had been assimilated by a synthetic intelligence ("Reframing"). Leaving behind the Ostgut Ton cathedral, official label of Berghain, for Smalltown Supersound—home to Jaga Jazzist, Kelly Lee Owens, and Lindstrøm—the mystic of cerebral chaos sheds his clubber armor to build a kaleidoscopic horizon, a hypnotic prism where synths stutter broken rhythms over grainy textures and bass lines sharp as lasers ("Force Of Habit").

Through an erudite manipulation of digital tools, "Stochastic Drift" explores both mathematics and the fragmentation of the self, tracing fluid and dreamlike mental trajectories where melodies dissolve into continuous regenerations ("Cosmic Microwave"). It's as if a once-android Mark Fell were rediscovering his organic side, allowing future-jazz presences to emerge (the title track, a lysergic trip of subcutaneous synthesis and liquid variations) and ambient caresses to drift like whispered thoughts ("Fluid Mechanics")—expressions of a rediscovered humanity.

We are in lands still scarcely charted. Not that the symbiosis between man and machine is new, but here the narrative shifts: it’s not a cold, impersonal algorithm in control, but an entity made of hesitations, fears, and impulses—one that may not share our genome but possesses a soul of its own. It’s on this edge that Barker’s pioneering spirit takes shape, projected toward unknown dimensions and possible futures. One thing is certain: he still has constellations to explore. And we, wide-eyed, are here to listen.

24/04/2025