Before their out-of-this-world parties, Martian Moves’ Luca Burgess, Michael Donlon, and Louis Bryan started mixing as a matter of necessity. Luca went to Pirate Studios during lockdown with mates simply because it “was one of the only places open during COVID”; after a surgery that meant Michael had to defer his university offer, “being a classic bedroom DJ” gave him something to do on his year off, and in his words, “we basically forced Louis to start mixing.”

 

They found each other over “a shared love of dance music” and a shared hatred of the Oxford nightlife scene. “Something was desperately needed” Luca told me. “Our main assessment was that it was mostly commercial clubs where people went to get fucked up and to get with each other, and it just wasn’t really a very wholesome or particularly exciting or positive environment. And it wasn’t about the music at all”.

 

So after some “scheming” at Glamorous after an Electric Music Society open decks, Martian Moves was born—fittingly—on the dance floor. It bears the stamp of its members diverse musical histories—from Luca’s Latin jazz guitar playing to Michael’s days driving around the countryside blasting Bassline. And they’re still clearly always looking for more, looking outward for something new, looking into, as Louis put it, “all the different history, all the different nooks and crannies and the genres”. The martians’ known music universe is ever-expanding.

 

When they get out of Oxford, this means hitting the clubs, the festivals, the warehouses—anywhere with a set of decks and a good vibe. They told me about trips to Gottwood festival In Anglesey, Venue M.O.T., a “smoky” converted car garage in London, and the Jago in Dalston to see Beirut Groove collective spin 60s, 70s and 80s Middle Eastern and North African dance music. If there’s one thing they’re adamant about though, it’s that it’s independent. For political reasons—“dance music is political” Luca emphasises— but also because there’s no faking the atmosphere that comes along with it. That’s why Bullingdon, where they held the free front room parties that started it all, is their favourite spot on their home planet. “The best spaces are small, dark and dingy”, Michael says. In a place like that, as Luca puts it, you’re “free to move and just let go, and act however you wanna act and be however you wanna be”.

 

While they’re out and about having a dance, they’re also looking for DJs who might board the spaceship for a night. They’ve been keen to bring fresh talent into Oxford ever since their first booking at their collab with Flow Soundsystems in Bridge. Luca recalls watching MU$H mix that night: “It was just deadly—I remember thinking, ‘Fucking hell, that’s why you book people’”. Client_03 and Detroit in Effect top their list of dream bookings, but “it doesn’t have to be a big name”, Luca tells me, “Just someone who’s really dedicated to their craft and who’s put a lot of hours in behind the scenes”.

 

It isn’t only about the music though. Luca calls it “world-building”, the intergalactic illustrations he does for the posters and the idiosyncratic Insta captions they put together to market their events. “It’s not really a business-y thing”, Louis says—not everything in Oxford, it seems, is about drumming up content for Linkedin. But marketing is a necessary evil, one that they have turned into a creative outlet. Luca appreciates the chance to make something a bit less professional than the graphic design work he’s doing on his year abroad in France, which is all “less pink, less purple”. The whole Martian Moves world, it seems, is about letting your hair down. Luca says it’s “a silly thing that we’re trying to bring to the seriousness of Oxford”.

 

“We’re pretty terrible at planning for the future” Michael insists, but that hasn’t stopped them from setting their sights on some new galaxies. Louis is working on some big summer plans, with a possible festival in the works:“We’d love to get into the woods”, Luca says. Louis is also keen to do a show with a live element: “It would be wicked to get a proper hardware set up in the club and have some people make some music on the spot”. When pushed on postgrad plans, there’s talk of taking Martian Moves to London. “I think deep down we would all like to do something in London at least once”, Michael says. They all know this would be their toughest mission yet, but as Luca says, with the “blood, sweat and tears” they’ve put in already, it would be a shame not to go for it “the limit is just how much time and imagination you’ve got really”. And the desire to dance is here to stay for these three. “I think we’re always gonna wanna put on parties and hang out together,” Louis says, “because we’re all really good mates, you know?” Simple as that.

 

For now, though, the boogie isn’t going anywhere. They’re landing in the Bullingdon backroom this Saturday, with special guest Katya, “the London underground’s acid connoisseur”.  They’ll all be “shaking some serious ass ‘till three in the morning”, so come to their favourite spot to see some martian magic live in the pink and purple flesh.∎

 

Words by Ayla Samson. Image courtesy of Martian Moves.