Check out our interview Austrian DJ/Producer & Soundcreator, Florian Meindl. He will be performing at Air on November 22 so check out the interview below and stop by his set!

First of all, it's really nice to meet you. It will be your first time performing in Japan, so please introduce yourself! Could you discuss your music career and why you decided to be part of the club music scene?

Hi, nice to meet you too! Yes it's my first time in Japan and I'm very excited. I love Japanese food, especially the fish. I have heard that the Japanese appreciate good music and fans appreciate the smaller details - like my LED T-Shirts, limited USB sticks or limited vinyl pressings. I like fancy things like this as well so maybe Japan will be very important for me in the future!

I come from Austria (Near Salzburg, the city of Mozart) but I have a non musical background, I'm a mechanical engineer actually, but when I was 20 I decided to focus on my hobby which I started when I was 14, which is making Techno music! First I played vinyls on 3 decks and Jeff Mills, Richie Hawtin etc. were my heroes, then I began producing my own music in the age of 17 with a PC and Reason software, but I quickly switched to Cubase and made Minimal Techno. After 3 years producing I was signed to TRAPEZ Records in Germany and I took the opportunity and moved to Berlin in order to produce music with Oliver Koletzki, Daso and Martin Eyerer. In between I was studying Music Technology in London where I learned a lot about being creative, acoustics, microphone recording and mixing. At this time I found my label FLASH Recordings together with Oliver Koletzki but 3 years ago I re-designed it.

A big milestone after founding FLASH Recordings was my best selling record so far: BLAST - it got played and charted by Dubfire, Richie Hawtin and all the big djs so this was a big boost in my career. But I never produced something similar because I do not always produce the same style only because it worked once, I try to be versatile and I like to surprise and develop! So the next big milestone was something completely different, a house record called Here Today Gone Tomorrow on K7 Recordings.

Other milestones were my remixes, like the Hot Chip Remix and my Royksopp Remix and finally my debut Album in 2012 WAVES.

Hot Chip/I Feel Better


Royksopp/This Must Be It


I also manage a very succesful loops & samples label called Riemann Kollektion where I have guest producers like Pan-Pot, Christian Smith, Shlomi Aber, Ramon Tapia, Format:B, Wehbba or Martin Eyerer. Sometimes I give interviews to magazines like Future Music where a DVD is attached so you can see how I work in the studio! Have a look at this video on Youtube.

How do you spend your days off? Do you have any hobbies?

I used to like building speakers, especially horn-speakers. Now I only have one real hobby which is building and driving high speed RC boats and cars, I also like helicopters. But I really like to walk in the woods and parks with my girlfriend and my chihuahua "Pirlo"

You have many faces: a creator, DJ, label owner, and sound designer. What inspired you to be a part of these multiple fields?

I have a big problem and advantage at the same time, which is versatility - I find it very hard to specialize in a field because I want to do too many things at once, but I somehow can manage it and be on top in more fields - but it is a lot of work as you can imagine. But all these things influence each other a bit so it's ok - when I produce loops for Riemann Kollektion I sometimes invent something and make an own track out of it! So at the end it all comes together!

Could you explain the concepts of your labels such as FLASH Recording and Riemann Kollektion, as well as sound producing featuring an artist, and sound design studio?

FLASH Recordings is my musical outlet which reflects my taste and it is also a platform for artists I like, so I even allow them to release tracks which I don't play in my dj sets - they have a certain artistic freedom - a good example is this new EP from Austrian producer Ned Rise called Coltrane EP, I would only play the track "Parom" in my dj sets but I love the other tracks in the EP to listen to you know? So the concept behind is, not to release music of only one style but all styles in my taste - and very important is the graphics we have - it is done by 2 graphical artists and it was copied many times by other labels! It's a graphical system which works over years and changes and progresses a little bit all the time.

The concept behind Riemann Kollektion is, that I produce 50% of the loops of a package and the other 50% are done by a guest producer, I also have special releases like Special Synths or only Kickdrums. When I produce music I have a large pool of loops I can take which is a good and quick way to be creative in building up a track! Because when you spend 2h on tweaking a sound then you might have forgotten what you actually wanted to do or you are tired and don't want to progress with the buildup or arrangement of the song!

Congratulations on the release of your first album, WAVES. There are many floor killers such as "Good Times、Spread Out", in this album. Is there a concept behind the album?

Thank you - WAVES is an artist album which should show or sumarize what I can produce and what I like, what my skills are. Maybe I will make a concept album in the future but WAVES should be a milestone, that's also why I put a collectors poster inside the CD.

It's been a little while since the release of your first album. How is the feedback so far?

Very good and many chartings from Christian Smith, 2000 And One etc. I decided to make a remix package which will be released in the next week includes remixes of Stephan Bodzin, Sasha Carassi, Martin Eyerer, Oliscer Schories Remix so make sure you check it out!

What is your studio set up? Is there anything that you keep in mind when producing music?

I have a little project studio in Berlin with very good acoustic treatment (I studied this in my 3 years music technology in london), Genelec near-field speakers and outstanding mid-field speakers, they are called Bullfrog from Martion Audio Berlin. I love to use UAD cards including their amazing plugins like the Ampex Tape recorder. I also have some hardware like a SSL compressor clone, an Acidlab Bassline, Virus TI Desktop and an Arturia Keyboard but I mainly use software for production, especially Native Instruments products and Cubase. If you want to have more details just watch this interview on Music Radar.

Lastly, could you give us a message to Japanese fans?

Hey there - I'm very excited and curious how you will react to my music I will have about 10 completely unheard songs which I will test out in the club! Let's have a good time! See you!

For more information about his upcoming show, check here!