It feels like a long time ago that Enei was cited as a perennial ‘one to watch’.
The Russian hotshot picked up the ears of many discerning music fans – and more pertinently Critical boss Kasra – when he emerged on to the scene with a potent combination of impeccable production skills and a distinctive sound.
Now a household name and one of the imprint’s most integral members, he’s just a day away from releasing his highly anticipated sophomore album: Enei – Rituals.
“I spent about ten months producing this album, it was a tough but enjoyable experience” he says. “I’m not really that nervous because I’ve been waiting for it for so long, I’m just really excited – I can’t wait to release it and show people how it sounds.
“This year has been really cool; I said to Kasra I wanted to make a new album because I had so many ideas in my head and a few unfinished projects from the last album and he gave the green light. In fact, I’ve still got about forty unfinished projects right now, so I could probably finish another album if I wanted!”
Before Enei gets cracking on album number three, we found out just why we should all be excited for his second offering…
It features some hefty collaborations…
“I worked with lots of great people on this album. It was really cool collaborating with Frank Carter, he’s a really talented vocalist who I’ve tried to work with in the past to no avail, so I’m really glad it all went smoothly this time. The inimitable DRS brings a certain style and darkness to the album and Charlie Brix also adds a new dimension. Then there are collaborations with Eastcolors and the Critical family; Kasra, Foreign Concept and Mefjus. Each of them have brought their unique individual sound to the album, making it a really diverse listen filled with Critical influences.”
He’s improved even more as a producer since his last album…
“Since Machines I’ve really tried to hone in on my production skills and have tried to progress more and more as a producer. Machines took me about five or six months to finish whereas this album took me over ten months, and around that same time it took me about five minutes to finish the drums but now it takes me about five hours! That sums up how much longer I spend in the studio tweaking away now. I’ve taken a lot of tips and tricks from Mefjus – his style of working is really cool and it was a pleasure working with on the album. I think that’s been the biggest step for me in the past few years and it’s enabled me to really improve the quality of my music.”
He wrote half of the tracks on the album when completely hammered…
“In my opinion, the best tracks on the album are the ones I wrote when I was completely wasted! Maybe my creativity increases when I’m drunk – whether or not that’s a good thing I’m not too sure. I was particularly drunk when I wrote Vertigo and Analog Desert… I think. Maybe it’s not the most common approach to making music but it seemed to work for me on this album.”
It’s not just an album…
“This is more than just a body of music; there’s also a few other projects I’m excited to show off including a sample pack and video. I’m really excited to see people’s reactions to the video especially as we spent a lot of time producing it and I’m really happy with how it came out. I think it really captures the spirit of the track and will hopefully be one that people remember. Check it out below!”
It’s diverse…
“It’s not just all techy stuff on this album, there’s lots of other styles on there too. Every track is really different from the last, so it’s good for all kinds of music lovers, not just neurofunk fans. I’ve tried to bring the musicality back into my music with this album and I didn’t find it difficult doing that because I’ve produced a number of different styles in the past and I’m listening to lots of different styles at the moment.”
It’s a story…
“I tried to make this album a story from start to finish, including the artwork, which was done by the extremely talented Charlie Brix. I really like a lot of native music which is where the Rituals name came from, and it’s also named that because everyone has daily rituals in their lives and I wanted that to translate in the album. You can hear that tribal influence in quite a few of the tracks, and each track is a different part of the story, a different part of everyday life… a ritual.”
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