Alexey Egorchenkov, more widely known as Enei, has been turning heads in the d&b scene with a string of highly acclaimed releases on the renowned Critical imprint (to which he is exclusively signed) and remixes on Hospital and D Style.

 

More interestingly, d&b is not the only genre Enei has been making waves in as his other alias, Giant, propelled his career by making him the second artist to release dubstep vinyl in Russia. In addition to this, he also has a tech-house side project demonstrating his talents as an extremely versatile producer.

Now on his debut UK tour, the St Petersburg based producer will be visiting a number of UK cities including London at Fabric and Nottingham for the Detonate Indoor Festival.

2012 will see the release of Enei's LP along with more collaborations with Foreign Concept and Dub Phizix. We caught up with him to find out more about his album, what five records he would save on a desert island and his ideal studio set up.

Your LP is due for release later this year on Critical. When can we expect it to drop and what sort of things will we be hearing?
I think it will be released in October or November.  The album will include a mixture of deep tracks and some kind of music for dancing, but it is also possible to hear a lot of tracks with vocals from different MCs.

May marks your highly anticipated debut tour in the UK. What have been your best and worst experiences playing out so far?
I played at Hospitality in Leeds on the 20th of April and enjoyed it a lot!  Next cities will be Sheffield, Nottingham and London. What about experience from other gigs? – I really liked playing in Israel, there were a lot of people and the crowd was crazy.

Sunday 6th May will see you touching base at Nottingham's popular Indoor Festival. Who are your three favourite artists to see play in any genre?
It is 100 percent Andy C, Calyx & TeeBee, Phace & Misanthrop. It is very interesting for me to listen to the Calyx & TeeBee with their new tracks from the album and I always wanted to see Andy C performing live.

You originally started making dubstep but moved over to the more dark, techy side of d&b. What caused this and which do you prefer?
Yes, I did dubstep in the project called Giant, but now it has some changes which I do not really like. Dubstep has lost the meaning for me.

You've collaborated with DRS on a few tracks including Count To Ten and the highly acclaimed Obsession. What comes first – the beats or the bars?
Yes, I'm very proud of these two works because I always wanted to do a track with vocals by MC.  At first I did the music and then DRS recorded the vocals.

Your remix of Foreign Concept's Mob Justice has been received exceedingly well. What other remixes and collaborations have you got in the pipeline for this year?
I plan to do another track with a Foreign Concept and MC Codebreaker. And at the moment I am making a tune with Dub Phizix.

 

 

You mentioned in a previous interview you also make tech-house. What more can you tell us about that and can we expect to see any releases sometime soon?
Yes, I love  styles of music such as tropical tech and other artists such as Mastiksoul and labels like Toolroom - great stuff. But to be honest I have not really done something worthwhile yet, because there is a lot of music of this style in the world and it's a rare thing to find someone really talented. I write only for myself.

What is your favourite dubplate of 2012 so far?
Jubei & Flowdan - Say Nothing.

If you were stranded on a desert island and could only save five records, what would they be?
Bad Company – Inside The Machine, Photek – Solaris, Konflict – Messiah, old mixes by LTJ Bukem and Konflict – Star Trails.

What is your ideal studio set up?
For software I use FL studio and large amount of processing with Waves, Adam p22a studio monitors and TC Electronics' Powercore.

Any final words for fans out there?
Listen to good music, read books, eat properly and never mix vodka with beer.

Words: Liv Stroud & Anna Modera

Photo: Asya Voytovich

 

Related Links:

• Kasra Mixes FABRICLIVE 62
• Foreign Concept Guest Mix
• Foreign Beggars & Noisia 'Contact' Video
• Kasra Interview
• Jazzsteppa To Release Hyper Nomads LP

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