Prepare yourself for an ID onslaught of epic proportions, Enta has stepped up to the 1 More Mix series and he’s gone IN.
Landing a matter of months after his powerful debut album Digital Rage, the mix arrives during one of his busiest periods of his career so far…
As a DJ his schedule has never been more consistently packed; Days prior to this interview he played the likes of Hospitality at Bristol’s Motion and Inceptionz in Belgium. Within a week of publishing this interview and mix he’ll be heading over to New Zealand for his first Antipodean tour.
As a producer he’s equally as busy as he finds himself neck-deep in a creative frenzy feeling inspiration from a summer of eclectic music exposure at festivals and enjoying plenty of spare time following the completion of his album.
It’s a unique and highly positive moment in time for the young producer and he’s making the most of it. Don’t take our word for it; listen to this mix and feel it for yourself. Strap yourself in and find something to hold onto. When we say prepare, we mean prepare…
There are A LOT of IDs in this mix!
Oh yeah it’s full of exclusives mate. I finished the album in July and since then I’ve made around 30 new tracks and most of them are in that mix.
You’ve made 30 tunes since the summer?
About that. They’re not all 100% complete and mixed down. They’re more demo level. Quite quick test versions, you know? But yeah I’ve pumped out 25-30 of them since the album’s finished.
Pretty mad you finished the album in July and it came out in September. That’s a quick turn around…
Yeah the very last track, Aimbot, was finished then. That was very last minute. The singles were finished a lot earlier. Most of it was really, I was just trying to make sure I could get everything as good as I possibly could.
Always! I last saw you at Boomtown when you played for us. How have things been since then?
It’s been great man, really good. It’s been one of my busiest years and got gradually busier throughout. Things go in waves usually but things have been steady since summer with gigs up and down the country. I just played The Vault in Bournemouth, then Hospitality in Motion on Saturday. That was a really big one; I was closing the tunnel room for the Lens Curates line-up. It’s such a vibe in there. Actually I noticed every room was lively and everyone was giving out loads of energy. Like more than usual.
Sick! That’s what we want to hear!
Oh and I played in Belgium for the first time in years recently, too. I used to play there a bit when I was part of Flexxa.
Loads of DJs would go over every weekend to Belgium and play at one point. Were you part of that Eurostar movement?
Lewis was more than me. I was making the tunes and more studio based at the time. I did a few way back when. But this one just gone, Inceptionz, it was crazy. Mosh pits, people screaming and so much energy. That was really inspiring. Just a young and very up for it crowd.
Belgium’s still got it going on, then!
Yeah definitely. They love the switches. You chop a tune up and it sends them absolutely crazy. It’s quite interesting actually. I have a release coming on Bio at some point next year, it’s a jump up roller type of thing. I played it in Belgium and the reception was okay. That’s cool, they prefer the heavier stuff. But the next day I played Westfest with Toxinate and it was the 4-5 set so I was expecting people to be a bit like zombies. But I played this and this guy at the front reanimated like Frankenstein. It looked like he’d been electrocuted.
What a brilliant reaction. Those are the people you’re making the tunes for!
I wasn’t wearing my glasses but I just saw his arm flail upwards in this crazy motion. It was brilliant.
Oh you can’t see when you’re playing! I’m similar. My glasses mist up in the club so I just go blind.
Usually it’s not so bad because I’m in smaller clubs and it’s all quite close to the ravers, but at bigger raves I’m quite far away. I am slowly starting wear my glasses during my sets though because my sight isn’t getting any better.
Wise man. So are all these gigs the inspiration for these new tunes?
Yeah in a way. But mainly I’ve been checking and experiencing other forms of music during the summer at festivals. For example we saw Ed Cox and E.Coli who play Hard Tek but with live synths, vocalists, violinists and brass players. It was chaos! So influences and inspirations from stuff like that are finding their way into my productions. There’s some cheeky 4×4 in the mix.
There’s some cheeky everything! Taking influence from beyond the genre is so important…
Yeah, it’s usually in the summer when it hits me because I see so many different styles at festivals. Then when it’s hard raving season in the autumn and winter after that’s when you start hearing those influences come through in the productions.
Yeah feeling that. It’s funny, you’ve made the album seem like old news when it only landed a month or two ago.
Haha. It’s still doing well actually. I’m still seeing clips of people playing tracks from it. I was at Critical in E1 the other week and Fade Black dropped a few tracks from it. I watched the live stream from The Sauce and they opened with Side To Side which was sick.
We played that one on Vision Radio!
Yeah big up for that. Thank you. The album’s still going strong though for sure. I’m thinking of doing a track breakdown on TikTok and give a little window into what the tracks are made of.
And the levels of detail, too! I interviewed you for UKF a while back to announce the album and you explained how much detail you went into on elements like the introductions. Maybe that influenced these new tracks too?
That is something I’ve taken from the album; that approach to making tunes has definitely stayed with me. I learnt so much from the project but it’s good to have it done. It was such a big project, it took up my mind almost all the time whether I’m awake or asleep. I’m still adjusting to coming home and not having to jump into the album! I’ve had other work come in, and I’ve done a collab for Simple Simon on his Bro Science EP on Formation. But it’s nice to not feel the pressure.
What’s the science behind a good mix for you?
If I’m recording my own mix I treat it like a track I’ve made. I’ll pay attention to how it stats, where it goes and what it’s doing. But if I’m looking for a mix to listen to then I’m looking for stuff that’s really high energy because I’m in the gym or on the way to work and I need to wake myself up. The Neuropunk podcasts are really good. Two hours of really heavy neurofunk and it’s great because it’s all new artist from across Russian or that side of the world. There’s well over 100 tracks in a mix so there’s a lot of things to take inspiration from on there.
That’s a full-on neuro experience!
They do other genres, too. They do a liquidy one and a minimal one. All two or three hours long. Crazy. I love hearing the Russian chatting, too. I try and work out what they’re saying but the only word I can usually make out is ‘dubplate’. You can pick out the artist name or label but I mainly love how intense they are. I listen to a lot of 140 mixes on Rinse, too. N-Type, J:Kenzo especially. They bring in lots of different influences like techno or jungle. I enjoy that. There’s a lot of inspiration there – they remind how much you can do with just a sub bass. So yeah, I do check a lot of mixes in general to keep me inspired and to give me ideas.
Sick. But which ideas are coming from you next?
I’ve got a remix of Sovryn track coming on Korsakov soon-ish. I’ve got a remix for Invicta Audio and I’ve recently finished some music for Run which will either be two singles or a full EP. And there’s around 3 million tunes coming on Bio. Poor Fatman. I just sent him a folder of 30 tunes. He was like ‘Okay give me a few hours!’
Haha. I imagine a lot of this material is in the mix?
Yeah it is. And a lot of album tracks, too, but it’s the second drops.
Ahhhh. Nicely done. Making sure people don’t miss them!
Yeah exactly man. A lot of people don’t hear those drops because they mix out before they come in. People might think they’re VIPs and hit me up and it’ll be like, ‘Mate, you’ve had it all along.’ So yeah loads of new things and some second drops thrown in for good measure. Hope you enjoy it.
Enta – Digital Rage is out now on Biological Beats
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