k means

Never content to sit still in the expected, k means likes to throw you in at the deep end. Having felt their way into dance music as a youth via a formative love of covering video game soundtracks on the piano, they later fell hard for the sci-fi sensuality of footwork, intoxicated by its raw energy, intricate rhythms and visceral physicality. Nowadays the Bristol-based DJ finds themselves ebbing and flowing elegantly between the rush of the club and more experimental spirals, drawn deep into the amphibian ooze of the most lysergic and cacophonous corners of the musical spectrum.

Having honed their skill over countless hours of on-air experimentation for Noods, Netil and Rinse FM, k means has settled on a style spun more from texture and mood than any specific tempo or genre. As a resident at Bristol’s reliably mind-expanding Psychotherapy Sessions, their commitment to the fringes is borne out in an omnivorous appetite for sound, a relentlessly exploratory approach that sees the selector fearlessly navigating the wildest terrain and loosest vibes while maintaining a laser focus on the dance floor, spinning you out only to snap you back in.

From tunnelling wormholes in many of the most beloved venues across the UK, from The Trinity Centre and Strange Brew in Bristol to Ormside Projects, Venue MOT and FOLD in London, as well as SOUP and The White Hotel in Manchester, to rearranging the insides of some of the best clubs in the world, like Fabric, OHM and De School, k means proves that no room or stage is too big or small to thoroughly trip out.

Between closing Unsound and Timedance’s seven-year anniversary and making vital appearances at Intonal, Dimensions Festival and Cosmic Roots they demonstrate the ability to hold crowds at a constant simmer, burbling between unease and release, throbbing tension and low-slung sleaze, finding delicate balance between the dark, the disorientating, the steamy and the sweat-slicked.