baze.djunkiii (Intrauterin Recordings) - Favourite things
5) Roaming and reclaiming childhood territories
Something personal in the mix here. A good two decades after I graduated from school and, even before passing the final exams, I left the rural area I grew up in with the intention to never ever return again. I took a shot at it this summer, roaming (and stickerbombing) the territories, streets and areas I used to hate a lot throughout my youth alongside a close, wonderful and beloved soul this summer. A truly life changing one day field trip that totally changed my perception of things, which helped me overwrite loads of bad feelings and unwanted memories with positivity and things of greater importance than those I had stored in my mind before this trip happened.
4) The P.A. @ Rote Sonne / Munich
And the bass goes boom! The best sounding rig I’ve played on in ages. Filled with massive high stacks of Void Acoustics speakers, the club has no loudness restrictions paired and crystal clear sound at any level, wooden floors and was rocking with a massive Juke/Footwork set from Hyperdub’s Ikonika throughout the later course of the night… Defo one of the remarkable, rump-shaking, vibrating memories of this year for sure.
3) Re-issues (especially of 90s classics)
I might get a little bit of hate for this but fuck that. I still relying exclusively on vinyl when it comes to playing out as a DJ I’m glad that quite a bunch of tunes I missed throughout the 90s, which I’d definitely refer to as my formative years although I discovered electronic music in the second half of the 80s, have been remastered and re-released recently through various labels like Nervous Records, Strictly Rhythm, Optimo Trax and many more, helping me to go backwards and complete my collection and bring back fond memories of my early rave and clubbing experiences. And yes, some of these re-issues are quite obvious and might be easy to hunt down second hand or via discogs when it comes to original pressings, but as I’m not necessarily a hardcore digger type or sometimes just lazy. I feel like unplayed, remastered 12s of tunes I’ve always loved from the heart being delivered straight to the recordstore I do work at comes in handy and also re-fueled my love for classic 90s House music.
2) Making a full return to the decks
After kinda stepping back from the DJ circuit in early 2012, a decision that started to crumble after being invited to play some shows in Atlanta, USA for the first time three years later, it took me a while to refocus, figuring out how I’d define and also approach my role as a DJ for a new start, especially not being willing to give up on a die-hard vinyl and dubplates only policy which I still see as an essential part of what I’d like to refer to as ‘original DJ culture’. It seems like all of this came together again in 2k17: I started to play out more, gladly taking on shows all over the country, travelling quite a bit to play the occasional set in great, yet sometimes unsual places, getting loads of love and positive feedback for what I do on the decks. Playing out feels right again and, even after 20 years in the game, being able to inspire a younger generation of DJ’s, at least on a small scale, with a strictly oldskool style, using classic – but seemingly forgotten – mixing techniques and a selection that’s sometimes more of a freestyle’ish, beyond the beaten path kind is defo a pleasure. More of this to come in 2k18!
1) baze.djunkiii presents Transmissions From The Underground Vol. 1
More than a decade after I released my last official mixtape and stopped my Intrauterin Tapes label, it was a joy and honor to get back on the mixtape circuit for this. The guys at Munich’s Jahmoni Music – also home to artists like DJ Marcelle, Aaron Spectre and Bigga Bush – provided me with full artistic freedom in terms of selection which allowed me to showcase a bunch of tracks from the raw, harsh and untamed spectrum of underground electronic music which is regularly overlooked and not covered these days. They even agreed to take a shot at the classic cassette tape format for it.