Critical Music is proud to present ‘Countdown’, the fourth solo album from one of drum & bass music’s true doyens, Enei.
A master of every style and strain of the D&B template – from energetic jump-up and silky smooth liquid, to skull-smashing darkness – Enei’s vast talent and hard-grafted skills have placed the Russian-born producer among the genre’s greatest exponents.
Countdown’ sees Enei bringing vocalists onto seven of the album’s 12 tracks, adding a warmer and more human touch, a natural progression as he becomes ever more rooted in the UK’s multicultural D&B community, while still being the same artist behind some of the hardest and most punishing drum & bass in recent years.
Opener ‘Runaway With You’ sets the tone, presenting a moody liquid roller gilded with deft technical touches and the rich vocals of Cameron Hayes, before the lively, jazzy bounce of ‘Message’ featuring Sparkz lifts the energy in preparation for lead single ‘Black Bear’ to unleash its croaking, Belgian style jump-up pressure.
The vocals don’t stop coming; legendary London MC Killa P takes to the high-pressure ‘Nobody Else’, Bristol’s Eva Lazarus brings her soulful reggae inflections to ‘Set It Off’ and regular Critical contributor Verbz offers up his laidback bars across ‘Answers’.
The fantastically weird ‘Cartier’ punctuates proceedings with a pure instrumental work out that demonstrates Enei’s outrageous sound design skills, before the delicately drifting ‘Be The One’ brings more vocals from KLO in a link-up with Critical label boss and regular collaborator, Kasra.
Checks Up’ alongside Limmz reduces the tempo for the album’s sole non-D&B excursion, delivering a shaking breakbeat backbone for the young MC’s grime-tinted bars. From there, ‘Axis’ takes things back to the raw fundamentals with a bubbling, percussive roller, before the album closes on ‘Breathing’ featuring Megan Linnell, a beautifully emotive finale that brings the journey full circle. A Beatport-exclusive bonus track, ‘Dark’, rounds things out for the heads and leaves you hungry for even more.
Having already been road-tested across club and festival sets this year, ‘Countdown’ arrives with serious momentum behind it.
Almost twenty years on since his debut release, and almost fifteen since exclusively signing for Critical Music, ‘Countdown’ is a bold proclamation that Enei’s enthusiasm for his art, and the art form itself, storms forward unabated.
