Baaz – 8 Tracks To Reminisce To

Who doesn’t know him? Richard D. James aka Aphex Twin. I can’t say that he was one of my teenage heroes. It really started with “Windowlicker”. Only later did I discover his ambient productions. The reasons for picking this record are the memories of some pretty intense times I had at a club called “Stammheim” in Kassel (Germany), which unfortunately shut down in 2002. For roughly 5 years, I was pretty much a regular at this marvellously mad place. Besides the techno and house floor it had a massive chill-out area with sofas, beds and a water fountain. Sunday mornings at ten, the club staff would sometimes turn up with large trays full of fruit that they would hand out to the ravers. Amongst others, a local DJ named “DJ Fish” would play obscure music in the chill-out. You’d hear hip-hop, downbeat, ambient, bossa nova and lots of other experimental stuff – all in one night. In the late 90s, house, techno and hip-hop were even more distinctly separated than today. But in this chill-out room everyone came together. It was great and it’s still an unforgettable time of my life. It’s really sad that you don’t have these kinds of rooms in today’s clubs anymore.

Daniel Bell’s LP “DBX – Rare And Unreleased“ from 2000 was a major influence on me. I vividly remember how I was driving around with a friend and all of a sudden this album, this particular track starts to play. Instantly: goose bumps all over… The car’s stereo was actually pretty shitty but we drove along those roads, headbanging nevertheless.

Ever since my first encounters with house and techno, I’ve been following Matthew Herbert aka Radioboy very closely. His early productions on labels like Phono or Phonography are especially important to me. I still recall a particularly experimental Radioboy concert at Robert Johnson. For instance: he smashed a TV set right in front of the audience and then sampled the sounds. He also “live destroyed” McDonalds fast food. Just as he was about to hurl a Big Mac against a wall of microphones, he missed, and the Big Mac hit some guy in the audience square in the chest.

Jan Jelinek aka Farben’s records are amazing. They are distinctive, hypnotic and simply timeless. A lot of it is based on jazz samples yet sounds more electronic than organic, which is something I like a lot. If I’d ever open a club it would definitely have a chill-out area with lots of sofas and comfy corners and Jan Jelinek would be one of the first artists I’d invite there. Those “chill-out areas” that you had in the 90s, with proper sound systems, are really something I’m missing in the current club scene.

Theo Parrish and his way of sampling were my gateway to jazz music. I’ve concerned myself with jazz for quite a long and intensive period. I like jazz that sounds somewhat moody, preferably with lots of loud high hats and a bumpy contrabass. This particular record by Ahmad Jamal has everything I love about jazz music. Besides, both pieces on the record are live recordings and last about 20 minutes. You can really get lost in them. On top of that there’s a pretty cool introduction by Ahmad Jamal.

This track also reminds me of the good old rave years of the late 90s, early 00s. DJ Pierre (resident at Stammheim, Aufschwung Ost) played most of the Sunday afterhours, usually never under 5-6 hours. The level of energy that DJ Pierre could generate was simply incredible. I remember how one Sunday afternoon, after he’d played his final record, people just wouldn’t accept that it was over and started banging the walls and floor with empty bottles, hollering until there was an encore. Around that time there were a lot of DJs who, to my mind, played a rather boring and functional kind of techno. DJ Pierre’s productions, however, were a colourful mix of old and at that time recent Chicago tunes, totally weird Brighton techno or music by labels like Djax-Up-Beats. Sadly, DJ Pierre passed away much too soon in December 2012.

Another classic. This record was first released in May 1998 and then reissued quite a while later. Sunpeople are two of my personal heroes, namely Baby Ford and Thomas Melchior. Already towards the end of the 90s they had this unmistakably groovy and dry style of house funk that they later cultivated as “Soulcapsule”. The first time I heard this was in a mix by Sven Väth that I’d recorded somewhere on tape.

Alex Grey aka Deep Magic was the initial spark that led me further into the world of drone music. All the related stuff I had heard so far was more along the lines of ambient and a lot more melodious. With his 2010 mini-album “Planetary Roots”, Deep Magic has downright hypnotised me on many flights or train rides. Not one of these tracks runs under 15 minutes. Absolutely perfect for spacing out. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find a video to this record. As far as I know, not much has been released under “Deep Magic” lately. He also plays in a band called “Sun Araw”, that I also totally recommend. The genre has been with me for a few years now. I just can’t get enough of it.