For our next interview, we caught up with UK based trio EYNKA.
Having already received heavyweight support from the likes of Solomun, Kolsch, Camelphat, Pete Tong, Danny Howard to name just a few, It was great to get the boys involved in our series. We find out what else they have been up to, how the trio first joined forces, what new music and shows they have upcoming plus so much more.
Hi boys, how you doing?
Hey! We’re doing well thanks. Been a mad couple of weeks juggling studio cave time with making the most of the sun.
Firstly, EYNKA consists of how many members and how did you all meet? What made you decide you were all going to work together?
There are three of us and we go waaaay back. 2 of us (Dave and Chris) are brothers and Josh is a really old friend. We all met when we were 5 years old at primary school. We’d each been doing our own thing musically until deciding to collaborate on a track a few years back. The creative chemistry immediately clicked and from then on we gravitated towards doing more work together until we launched Eynka a couple of years ago.
Where is your studio based and how often do you spend days in the studio together?
Our studio is based up in north London. We try to get as many days as possible in the studio together each week and juggle this with a fair amount of remote working. This normally averages out as 2 days in person and about 3 remotely. Josh lives in the Czech Republic and comes back to the UK every 6 weeks for a couple of weeks of intensive writing, so we have these pockets of time where we’re all in the studio together for 6 days a week!
Do you have any exciting music that is coming out in the next coming months?
We’re really excited about some of the music we’ve got lined up. We have another single coming out on Stress Records in September and a track coming out on a new label being launched by one of our favourite artists 👀.
How did you come up with the name EYNKA?
We made a track a while ago which sampled a haunting choir piece. We looped a section and the choir sounded like it was singing the word “EN-KA“. We loved the sound of it and just slightly adapted the spelling.
How would you describe your sound to someone who hasn’t heard your music before?
I’d say our sound is heavily influenced by all things related to techno, breaks and electronica, and ultimately has quite a cinematic edge. We try to write emotive music which is both groove and melody driven, with the aim of taking the listener on a journey with us, both through each track we make and mixes we put together.
What other DJs from around the world have been supporting your music?
We’ve been really grateful to have been supported by so many incredible artists, including Solomun, Kolsch, Camelphat, DJ EZ, Faithless, Claptone, Gorgon City, Oliver Koletzki, Sub Focus and Ben Hemsley. We’ve had some amazing support from Pete Tong, Danny Howard, Sarah Story and Sian Eleri at BBC Radio1.
And we’ve got to send a big shout out to Ben Malone, Amy Elle, and Leftwing Kody at Kiss FM for the support too. We appreciate everyone playing our tracks out a lot – it’s always a buzz hearing our tracks in clubs and on the radio.
Do you have any exciting bookings you’d like to talk about that are happening this year?
Excited to announce that we have a set coming up at Ministry of Sound in London on Saturday 24th September as part of their 31st Birthday celebration. Can’t wait – MoS is a massive part of our heritage and inspiration. One of the first CDs we ever bought was a Ministry of Sound Annual album.
Who are your top 5 artists who have influenced you to get where you are today and why?
Kolsch
Moby
Chemical brothers
Robert Miles
Jon Hopkins
They’re all masters of fusing emotion with next level production trickery, whilst also managing to create iconic and memorable songs that really do stand the test of time.
If you could work with anyone in the world, who would it be and why?
That’s a tricky one. So many incredible artists we would absolutely love to work with. I know we’d all have a slightly different take on answering the question but I think we’ll go with Yussef Dayes. His grooves and energy are unbelievable. We’d love to get in a room with him and a few of our favorite synths and press record.
What does your music production setup consist of?
We do all our recording, editing and mixing on a MacBook Pro using Logic Pro X. Most of the ideas come from jamming with our hardware synths, samplers and drum machines, which include a Prophet Rev2, Moog Sub 37, Novation Peak, Roland TB3, Elektron Octatrack, Rytm, Analog Four, Analog Heat, a Faderfox pc12 and an Erica Synth Zen Delay.
We have an UAD Apollo 8 and a few 8 core satellites with the Ultimate UAD bundle too.
What is your most used plugin that you use on every track?
Shaperbox is a new addition to the plug-in library which we absolutely love for all kinds of multiband processing, whether it’s sidechaining, distortion, panning or creatively adding noise. Also special mention to Soundtoys – we use a lot of their plugins on every track we make.
Away from dance music, what is your go to music to listen to?
So much different music new and old inspires us. Our tastes are pretty eclectic, from straight up classical music, to film soundtracks, to soul, dub and hip hop. Basically anything that makes us feel something. I think in some way everything we listen to outside of dance music inspires our songwriting and production. Special mention to Pink Floyd – they’re a great example of timeless, cinematic, emotive and incredibly immersive music that will never get old.
