Meku: The Shine A Light On Floorless Mix

We’ll chat more with Floorless in a minute but for now strap in for a rollercoaster ride of calculated madness of a mix that the festival has to offer from festival resident Meku…

Listen and get familiar below:

You’re pretty new on our radar, fancy telling us a little bit about yourself?

Who are you: Meku
Where are you: London
What are you: I am a DJ, producer and Floorless Resident. I also run a new music collective called Folli Projects.

Cam (festival Co-Founder) tell us a bit about about Floorless Festival:
How did it come into being and how did you become involved in it?
Floorless came about totally by accident. Over the first summer of lockdown when rule of 30 was a thing, Phoebe told me that she wanted to organise a weekend getaway in a field. We were in lockdown, in our early twenties, back living with our parents and losing our minds. I asked if I could help out with music, sourcing a system and putting together a line up of friends. From there we just kind of got carried away out of sheer boredom, Andrew got involved on the build, Will & Tris as techs. The weekend turned out to be so special we’ve just continued to let ourselves get carried away until our 5th year, with more friends joining the team, 300 people attending and artists joining us from across the UK and Europe.

It feels like there’s a real hunger and enthusiasm for these smaller festival experiences over these multi-multi tick list ones. Why do you think this is?
I like to compare it to the difference between attending a big club like Printworks versus a smaller intimate venue like The Carpet Shop or Ormside Projects. I’m not sure that there necessarily is more hunger for small festivals, but out of those that are really passionate about dance music and the communities around it, the more underground, intimate experience often delivers the most memorable experiences and connections. Smaller venues and festivals are able to pay more attention to details. We can strive to deliver the perfect experience for our target audience versus seeking to appeal to the masses. We mostly don’t sell tickets based on our line up but this experience we deliver and word of mouth that comes from there.

The site looks pretty magical, how did you find it?
Finding a site is probably one of the trickiest parts of starting a festival. We’ve been blessed with a beautiful piece of land and a landlord we have a great relationship wtih. We had to move from our initial land due to licensing limitations. We were just hunting after that, any way we could really. We wound up finding a mutual friend from Bristol who owned a soundsystem and held parties on his family land. They were looking to host new events, the timing just worked out for us.

What challenges have you faced running a festival of this size in the current climate?
Going back to my previous reference, it’s the same issue as small clubs vs big ticket events. People have less money at the moment so are less likely to take a chance on a small festival it seems. They’d rather bet on a festival with lots of artists they know playing. It’s been tougher to sell tickets than we envisaged. It seems to be ticking up now, in classic last minute fashion. Which is great, but as you can imagine, incredibly stressful for us organising!

What’s been your favourite moment from the festival?
Every year, my favourite moment is when it all kind of clicks into place. When people start to loosen up and you can feel the party is in full swing. The relief that we’ve pulled it off and can now all start to fully enjoy it all.

Back to Meku from here… let’s have a look at his nice press shot first though:

Where was the mix recorded?

At home in my bedroom.

What would be the ideal setting to listen to the mix?

I would say in a car with some mates, driving around south east London before a night out.

What should we be wearing:

Umbro head to toe and Sondico shin pads, no exceptions.

What would be your dream setting to record a mix: Location/system/format.
I’ve always liked the idea of recording a more downtempo, listening-oriented mix in a dimly lit, hazy bar on a warm hi-fi system.

Which track in the mix is your current favourite?
There’s a few I really like in here but if I had to choose one it would have to be ‘ID3’ by Deadbeat. It was released nearly 10 years ago and has that distinctive, imperfect skippy groove that characterises so many dub techno tracks from that era. It also features vocals from the legendary Paul St. Hilaire. I’ve been listening to a lot of older deep house and dub techno recently – a lot of those productions have a very raw and human-like feel to them which I love.
I also have to shout out ‘Mek Money’ by Ape drums, silent addy & Projexx. My mate Alex had a BBQ the other week and we must’ve listened to that track at least five times in a row.

What’s your favourite recorded mix of all time?

Yet again, too many to choose from but the one that comes to mind is Joy Orbison’s RA mix from 2012 as it’s got one of the best intros I’ve ever heard. Leon Vynehall’s RA mix is also brilliant. And any mixtape put out by Trilogy tapes.

If you could go back to back with any DJ from throughout history, who would it be and why?

Any of the two artists mentioned above would be an honour, but otherwise, it would have to be all of my best mates. We all learnt to mix together and have spent countless hours since doing so. Here’s to many more.

What was your first DJ set up at home and what is it now?

When I was at uni my mate got me into mixing tracks on youtube by having multiple tabs open. My older brother then gave me his old Pioneer DDJ Ergo decks which I learnt to properly mix on. Now I just use my Pioneer XDJ RX2.

What’s more important, the track you start on or the track you end on?

It really depends on the context of the set but personally I love selecting opening tracks.

What were the first and last records you bought?

I remember buying my first record in Soho with one of my best mates Cam (Cam Joon), it was ‘Gabrielle’ by Roy Davis Jr – there was a wicked ‘Words To Give By’ refix on the B-side, which we played at Jumbi’s a while back.

I think the last one I bought was from ‘Babe Roots & Another Channel’.

If this mix was an edible thing, what would it taste like?

Mango.

If it was an animal what would it be?

A Hedgehog.

One record in your collection that is impossible to mix into anything…

I have quite a few old rock records that I’ve taken from my dad’s collection so probably one of those.

Upcoming in the world of…
I’ve mostly been working on productions as well as some other projects. I’ll also be playing b2b with my boy Cam Joon at Floorless this year so I’m very excited for that.

Anything else we need to discuss.
Support your local rave and buy a ticket to your favourite festival’s favourite festival, Floorless x

Floorless Festival takes place from 2nd-4th August in the Wiltshire countryside.
More info here.