What do you know about Estonia? Let's have a quiz. What's the GDP? $39.431 billion? Correct. Who's the prime minister? Toomas Hendrik Ilves? He's the PRESIDENT you idiot, everyone knows that Taavi Rõivas is the PM! That's just basic Estonian knowledge. Ok, here's an easy one for you: what was the first Estonian satellite and what is it famous for? If you said, "it's the ESTCube-1 and it's known for being the first satellite in the world with an electric solar wind sail (e-sail)," then you'd be right, and I'd like to offer you a massive congratulations.What we know about Estonia is that Merimell Sokk, the UTTU affiliated producer whose Work Out EP we featured earlier in the year, is probably the best purveyor of no-nonsense house and techno in the country and when she asked us if we wanted an exclusive mix from her, we jumped at the chance. What we got was just over an hour of brutal, shapeshifting club music that's got us ready for a big night out on the town, even though we know we're spending the evening cleaning the bath and eating chicken dippers straight from the packet. If you're going out though, we recommend getting this on on full blast RIGHT NOW. Check out and the mix and a short interview with Sokk below.THUMP: You make pretty futuristic sounding ghetto tech sounding tracks? How did they come about?
Merimell: My heart has always belonged to techno and to the darker tech-house sounds. I remember playing hard tunes at gigs but I kept liking only some parts in those tracks. I felt like that those tracks missed heavy 4/4 claps, hats and crazy snare drum patterns in them so I started to make my own edits. Since making those edits I started to make my own kind of genre in my productions as well. In my opinion there isn't a big scene for this in Estonia but maybe big enough for one bigger artist. When I started playing techno in Estonia five years ago it was more of an underground thing and had it's own little scene with certain group of people who came to those parties. Now I think that people who used to think that this kind of music is some kind of drug-only thing are finally getting it and overall techno is getting more and more popular in Estonia, but it's the monotone stuff. My kinda techno includes sampled vocals, shitloads of claps and snares and some shorter but catchy melodies.Can you tell us a little about your radio show?
Since the demand for techno grew, I was asked to play more shows and record more mixes and upload my live sets somewhere on the internet. A while back, a friend and I were thinking of bringing back our old techno event series, 'Machine Nation' and, as luck had it, one of the Estonian national radio stations was starting it's new season. So it all fitted together. The people got a techno show that had weekly mixes and live recordings.Tell us a bit about your DJ sets…
I think my sets differ from my own production work but you'll never not hear the basic 808 sounds. I really like hard and raw techno but I've got time for the more deep and bassy tech-house sound. In terms of mixing, I like to make 'new' tracks on the fly. The loop button is my best friend.How did you end up working with DJ Haus, UTTU? Did they come to Estonia and find you?
Hmm, DJ Haus wrote to me one day asking for and about my music. I think he found me from soundcloud. After sending him some fresh tracks he wanted to sign me. I didn't really know about UTTU before but I remember asking Chambray about this label and he assured me that this is THE label to be in.Follow Merimell on Facebook // SoundCloud // Twitter
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Merimell: My heart has always belonged to techno and to the darker tech-house sounds. I remember playing hard tunes at gigs but I kept liking only some parts in those tracks. I felt like that those tracks missed heavy 4/4 claps, hats and crazy snare drum patterns in them so I started to make my own edits. Since making those edits I started to make my own kind of genre in my productions as well. In my opinion there isn't a big scene for this in Estonia but maybe big enough for one bigger artist. When I started playing techno in Estonia five years ago it was more of an underground thing and had it's own little scene with certain group of people who came to those parties. Now I think that people who used to think that this kind of music is some kind of drug-only thing are finally getting it and overall techno is getting more and more popular in Estonia, but it's the monotone stuff. My kinda techno includes sampled vocals, shitloads of claps and snares and some shorter but catchy melodies.
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Since the demand for techno grew, I was asked to play more shows and record more mixes and upload my live sets somewhere on the internet. A while back, a friend and I were thinking of bringing back our old techno event series, 'Machine Nation' and, as luck had it, one of the Estonian national radio stations was starting it's new season. So it all fitted together. The people got a techno show that had weekly mixes and live recordings.Tell us a bit about your DJ sets…
I think my sets differ from my own production work but you'll never not hear the basic 808 sounds. I really like hard and raw techno but I've got time for the more deep and bassy tech-house sound. In terms of mixing, I like to make 'new' tracks on the fly. The loop button is my best friend.How did you end up working with DJ Haus, UTTU? Did they come to Estonia and find you?
Hmm, DJ Haus wrote to me one day asking for and about my music. I think he found me from soundcloud. After sending him some fresh tracks he wanted to sign me. I didn't really know about UTTU before but I remember asking Chambray about this label and he assured me that this is THE label to be in.Follow Merimell on Facebook // SoundCloud // Twitter