mumurations 003 | BARKER [LIVE]

About

murmurations | a space for sonic entrainment and mutual tuning Sonic entrainment refers to how bodies, minds, emotion and social rhythms fall into synchrony: it’s the ongoing mutual tuning - much like how birds in a murmuration recalibrate to one another in flight. murmurations channels this principle and invite electronic artists to expand beyond the coded rituals of sub-genres into a genre-open environment where sound becomes relation, resonance, and experimentation. -- British-born, Berlin-based artist Sam Barker has spent over a decade reshaping the edges of electronic music, operating between the club and more exploratory sonic terrain and becoming widely known for redefining dancefloor functionality through rhythm, texture and emotion rather than traditional 4/4 kick drums. A longtime resident of Berghain, Barker’s celebrated solo releases on Ostgut Ton and Smalltown Supersound, from the kick-less, behaviorism-inspired Debiasing to the transhumanist-leaning Utility, helped define a new category of ambient dance music and earned widespread critical acclaim across Pitchfork, Resident Advisor, Mixmag and Mojo. His later releases, including Unfixed and the 2025 album Stochastic Drift, deepened this probabilistic, emotionally charged approach, with Stochastic Drift hailed as his most definitive statement to date. Beyond his solo work, Barker’s practice spans DJing, live performance and collaboration, including Barker & Baumecker, improvisational projects such as Stoor and Circle of Live, and ongoing work with artists like Bendik Giske and Kay Sievers, while his curatorial vision is reflected in the influential Leisure System label and club night. Alongside this, his work as an instrument designer and technologist through Voltek Labs has led to large-scale installations and bespoke acoustic-digital instruments for galleries and architectural spaces, all underscoring a singular focus on the peak-time emotional potential of ambient music as he continues to quietly s