WetYourSelf! Catching Up With _nd Baumecker

As well as being resident in our Room One night on every weekend, WetYourSelf! DJ’s Cormac, Peter Pixzel and Jacob Husley find themselves invited to share their unique vibe round the world’s landmark underground club spots. Needless to say many a friend is made along the way and one such friend garnered from past performances at Berlin’s iconic Panorama Bar is next to join the crew - resident DJ, club booker and Barker & Baumecker collaborator _nd Baumecker. So in anticipation of _Baumecker sharing the full sonic range of his extensive record collection in the booth with them the WYS! team took some time to catch up with the DJ and producer’s recent and forthcoming activities. Hey _nd, it’s really a pleasure to welcome you to WYS! We've all enjoyed your sets at your Panorama Bar home, so it’s great to welcome you to ours. Cormac had a chat with you some years ago regarding DJs becoming producers. At the time you seemed keen to focus more on being a DJ. Since then you've had great success with Barker and Baumecker. Tell us about your development from DJ to Live? To be honest it went all really quickly. I wasn't planning on becoming a producer (and I still don't see myself as one) I was then asked by a longtime chat buddy from Seattle to do a remix for the band Sleepy Eyes Of Death . I had no idea how to approach this and I asked Sam Barker if he could help me with it. We did the remix together and thought it might be a sweet idea to continue making music. I’ve bought a lot of equipment since then and the results are what you can now hear in the Barker & Baumecker productions. Aside from that I am working on some stuff on my own but it is far from being finished and I am super critical with myself so it may not ever see the light of the day. Berlin is an ever expanding mecca for clubbing and music, how has the city changed for you in the last 5 years? For me nothing has really changed. There are more people to meet, which is nice, as more musicians and music lead people come to the city. We are spoiled with great live shows and club line-ups. Privately my life has stayed very much the same in recent years and i am very happy about that. You are a man balancing many plates, live artist, resident DJ and booker. What do You do to relax? Relax, don't do it. Reportedly You own 22 000 records (you must have very strong arms) Are You only playing vinyl? What’s your take on vinyl vs digital in the club? I think Boiler Room helped spreading that rumour. I’ve actually never counted them or mentioned a number. That said i had 10.000 in the 90's, So I reckon I have around the 20.000 record mark by now. I am playing vinyl in 99% of my sets with a little help from an SD card. I used to burn CDs for my sets but now it really doesn't matter if the sound is coming digitally from a CD or from a stick. I really like the CDJs 2000 nexus. Soon I reckon they will get rid of the CD slot and all its mechanics and make them WAY cheaper than they are, in which case I would probably go for it and buy myself a pair. I’m still playing vinyl purely for its sound and handling This has to do something with how much I value the music I play and also with the fact that every record has its own unique sound compared to a .wav file mastered to the max. I hate the sound of that in the longterm. It makes my ears bleed after a while. I recently played my first (and last) "SD Card set" in Tokyo as I was there with Barker & Baumecker and had absolutely no more space to carry any records. I managed to do it but I really missed taking the record off the turntable, looking for the cover to put it back in, finding a record which comes next. All I need to do was stare at the display of the CDJs and figure out the track names and artist names because nothing was sorted the way I filed it at home - this stressed me more out than not being able to find a fitting record in the case. The hunting for records and also the fact that it is sometimes really hard to get a record that I really want, all this makes music so much more valuable compared to a file that is either downloaded for free or bought from various online shops. Plus it is one of thousands on your computer and gets lost within seconds of downloading. I sometimes even forget that I downloaded it. I also imagine hard drives to crash and then what? A vinyl record with scratches is still there in the end and spins better. Tell us about what you are working on musically at the moment, or any other interesting projects outside of the music world ? I am in the studio at the moment with Sam, getting a new live set together for the Ostgut Ton night at Berghain in 4 days which is a hell of a lot of work and a bit annoying to be honest as we would both rather be making more new tracks. Besides that I am figuring out a new synth I bought which arrived not even a week ago. Who have been the outstanding acts at the club this year? Since I've been away a lot this year playing shows I haven't been participating in the party world as much as Iv’e wanted or been able to listen to all the acts that I hoped to, unfortunately but I really liked Atom TM in Berghain. Besides that I am going to see concerts during the week and I felt Chromatics were really much what I like to see when going to a concert. Depeche Mode were okay, too. Any favourite London memories? Fruit Machine and Garage at Heaven in the beginning of the 90's as well as The Drum Club and Brixton Academy for some gay raves.