Growing up in East Berlin before the fall of the Wall meant having access to a different reality. This didn’t deter a young Alex Barck, who despite his situation devoured all he could about music from magazines and radio shows by Monika Dietel on SFB. This childhood obsession would become a lifelong journey after the Wall fell and a teenage Barck found himself in the heart of one of the most influential cities and scenes on earth. An avid record collector, he soon became known as an eclectic DJ holding court around town. In 1995 he became a member of Jazzanova, a local DJ collective whose blend of jazz, house and hip-hop made them an unavoidable name in the trip-hop era. In 1997, the collective founded its own label, Sonar Kollektiv, and Barck became its A&R, responsible for bringing forth some of the best-loved experimental dance and electronic records of the late ’90s and early ’00s.

In this lecture at the 2007 Red Bull Music Academy, Barck took the audience on a journey through his crates and explained how an East Berlin kid became one of the city’s best-loved selectors.