Enevel is a man who likes to set himself challenges and have puzzles to solve. His productions are often the result of him rising to a task he’s set himself in a bid to develop his skills. His day job as a medical engineer revolves around problem solving and finding solutions all day long. Even his current location in Austria is a challenge.
“I moved here to see how it is to live by myself alone, having nothing or no one but yourself,” says the Romanian artist earnestly over Zoom. It’s been this way for four years now and it was partly Austria’s thriving drum & bass scene that attracted Enevel to the country.
“I was also curious as to how the environment will inspire or affect my creations,” he adds. “And how I can translate my experiences into a track or creation of sorts.”
Experience translation has been a key challenge for Enevel since he started producing. Prior to opening a DAW, he’d already developed a reputation as an in-demand DJ in his home country since discovering bass music via UKF during the commercial dubstep boom of the early 2010s. “It’s a very small community here and not many people were playing underground music,” recalls Enevel who started with gigs in school and eventually made friends around the country, playing music as he went.
“There is also something more important than my reputation as a DJ and that is friendships. As soon as you start opening up about your love for the music you find others who have that too. And that makes it easy to make connections and friendships. This is what drove me to go onwards.”
Then one particular show he had an epiphany that marked a challenge he continues to rise to, to this day. “The parties were going good,” he explains. “I was playing a set in Cluj-Napoca. There were a lot of people, thousands. They were feeling the vibe, but something was missing for me. I realised that it was because I was playing other people’s music and it’s not my merit to get this reaction from the crowd. Producers put in so many hours of learning and creation and they deserve that reaction, not me.”
Perspective flipped in a very egoless way, Enevel has been on creative mission ever since, learning the dark art of production, setting himself challenges along the way. “I try and set myself some goals. This is a good way to advance,” he advises. “For every track I say to myself; now I would like to produce a track with a kickdrum that is longer than usual. Or shorter. Or focus on the drums or the instruments.”
One of his earliest tracks was Double Vision last year which appeared on Romanian compilation OWPN VINYL. The challenge he set himself was to “how to convey emotion through the musicality of the drums”. A free download and a self-release later, he’s recently followed it up with a full single release on MC SAS’s Sleep Less Recordings – Monologue / Memories (with Nelu). Two deep and dreamy work-outs that surge with emotion and have one eye on the stars, they’re a snapshot of how far Enevel has risen to the production challenge so far.
“They were influenced by the lockdowns. I started those tracks back then and we worked on them until the end. It wasn’t just a one week or two week process. It involved many months of tweaking,” admits the young producer. Monologue carries a particularly significant amount of weight.
“Monologue was a deep track. It’s a track in which I can reflect myself in that particular time I wrote it. If I’m listening to it, then I can really reflect all the feelings I had. It was very emotional and I tried to write those feelings into sound and make a track out of it.”
Setting himself challenges despite being in challenging times; Enevel continues to set himself goals to achieve and puzzles to solve. “What’s up next? Well it comes down to what things are happening in parallel with life and what inspires me,” he smiles. “Going out for a skate or a short vacation or seeing my friends. I’ll sit down and put my experiences into sound…”
