- Ena and Felix K were practically made for each other. Both got their start in drum & bass and approached the genre sideways, becoming standouts in the process, and they've both since moved on from 170 BPM dance music. Felix K used his prolific Hidden Hawaii label to zig-zag down all sorts of avenues, while Ena settled into the Samurai label family, touching on techno, ambient and modular experiments. The two artists first came together under the name 943 for a 12-inch of left-leaning techno, and now they've regrouped, as Flxk1 & Ena, for a longer, more cerebral session.
749 oscillates between heads-down tinkering and broken, wheezing dance music, with the wandering focus of a private jam session. When the two work up a beat, like on the tunnelling "C1" or spellbinding opener "A1," it often feels tenuous, as if the drums might fall into the foggy abyss below. You can picture them furrowing their brows as they try to wring something recognizable from the equipment. The duo is at their best when tapping into something that feels completely alien, like the trippy sonar pings in "B1" or the Halloween spookiness of "C2." Ena and K create textures that range from earthy to ethereal, sometimes all in the same track.
The more obscure moments here might only appeal to gear heads or experimental music fans, while the beat-oriented tracks have a dreary sway that's for sinking into instead of dancing. The music is more in line with Felix K's Blackest Ever Black EP or Ena's Divided series. 749 is equally intriguing, a chance to hear two crafty innovators put their heads together and see what bizarre shit they can come up with.
TracklistA1 Untitled
A2 Untitled
B1 Untitled
B2 Untitled
C1 Untitled
C2 Untitled
D1 Untitled
D2 Untitled