Jensen Meeker's Work Sits at the Intersection of Live Musicianship and Electronic Rhythm
In a city shaped by sound and movement, Jensen Meeker’s work sits at the intersection of live musicianship and electronic rhythm. His path into hypnotic techno is rooted in years of drumming, music production, and sustained experience performing across New York City.
“I’ve been drumming for most of my life,” Meeker says. “I started off really into rock ’n’ roll and jazz. I went to school for live music production and spent the better part of the last seven years just playing the local circuit in New York City with jazz fusion and rock ’n’ roll artists.”
That foundation ultimately reshaped how he responded to electronic music. “Being a drummer, I was just instantly captivated — drawn to the rhythmic nature of techno music,” he says. What stood out most was not volume or tempo, but continuity. “I kept hearing songs blend into another song like it was all one long track, and I really wanted to figure out how they were doing that.”
Meeker notes that techno culture operates differently depending on geography. “Techno culture doesn’t really have the same presence here as it does in Europe,” he says. “In places like Berlin or Tbilisi, it’s much more ingrained.” Rather than discouraging him, that distinction pushed him to dig deeper into the mechanics and history of the genre.
His approach to DJing is shaped directly by his background as a percussionist. “I’m definitely attracted to the rhythmic elements,” Meeker explains. “I love to blend polyrhythms together — take two tracks with the same polyrhythm but different timbres.” The goal, he says, is transformation without disruption. “You really get the sense that you’re listening to the same song, and then suddenly you’re in a different place — you don’t even know how you got there.”
Meeker’s involvement in the club environment extends beyond sound. “I literally time the lights to the song, it’s like optical Djing,” he says, pointing to rhythm as the connective tissue between audio and visuals. That instinct has personal roots. “My dad is a lighting director, so I grew up around that.”
Preparation and research are central to how he builds sets. “My process comes from relentless digging,” Meeker says. “Scouring international labels, Shazaming tracks at the club, scrolling Instagram to find new releases — creating a huge library.” That collection becomes the basis for set construction using Recordbox, where tracks are organized with flow and adaptability in mind.
Rather than focusing on recognizable moments, Meeker emphasizes context. “I don’t incorporate a signature hit like ‘The Bells’ into all my sets,” he says. “What matters is context — who you’re playing for, what time slot, what city.”
He describes DJing as a constant exchange between artist and audience. “It’s trial and error,” Meeker says. “You might take a risk on a song, see if people dance, watch reactions.” Even subtle shifts in geography can change outcomes. “Different cities or clubs have their own unique sounds. Amsterdam or Berlin might react differently to the same DJ.”
Technical discipline remains essential to maintaining cohesion. “It’s always important to phrase your tracks correctly” he says. “You want the whole set to sound cohesive even when you’re improvising and selecting tracks off the top of your head.”
Alongside DJing, Meeker is focused on developing original material. “There’s an urge to write my own music,” he says, describing techno production as an area he is actively working tomaster. He points to the impact of unreleased tracks played in clubs.
“You see people trying to Shazam or asking about something that doesn’t exist on any platforms yet.”
Looking forward, his ambitions span multiple forms of performance. “In five years, I’d love to spend the week touring as a session drummer for artists — jazz, pop, rock — and on weekends doing wild early-morning techno sets around the world,” Meeker says. At the center of his work is a memory that continues to guide him. “I remember what it was like at my first concert, at my first club,” he says. “If there’s one thing I want more than anything, it’s to inspire the next generation of musicians the same way I was when I saw my heroes perform.”
Check him out on Instagram @jensenmeeker and SoundCloud.