Cover photo by: Sophie Harbinson
Article By: Shayla Lee
Transcending traditional genres and experimenting with eccentric sounds, Ekcle is a UK-based duo that is on a journey to bring their diverse mix of styles to the electronic world. Made up of Harvey Carter and Jack Angel, Ekcle fuses together elements of chillwave, trap, future bass, and more, while proving that you can still create sonically cohesive music while including components from various other genres.
Their unique genre-bending music is reminiscent of artists like Hudson Mohawke, Lunice, CloZee, and Eprom. For fans who crave music that is unique and full of interesting sounds, listening to Ekcle feels like listening to a hidden gem that is destined for great things.
Ekcle just released a 30-minute guided listening mixtape full of unreleased music as well as their upcoming single “Pearl Jigsaw.” The mixtape is accompanied by a stunning animation created by Tina Punnerud who has worked with the likes of Liam Payne and Mae Muller. We had the chance to chat with the duo, who I believe is one of electronic music’s most promising new acts, about their new mixtape, the hidden surprises nestled in the visualizer, and what we can expect from Ekcle this year.
Femme Riot: To people unfamiliar with you and your music, how would you describe yourselves and Ekcle to them?
Ekcle: Hi team FEMME RIOT, thanks so much for having us in for a chat. For people that haven’t heard our music, picture the following: Imagine you’ve exited an elevator at the top floor of a hotel and you see a ring of 4-5 rooms. When you exit the elevator, one of our compositions commences and as you walk from room to room, a new section of the song is introduced. The song finishes when you make it back to the elevator and exit.
Where do you draw inspiration for your music? Who are some of your musical influences?
We’re huge fans of artists and composers like Hans Zimmer, Sigur Ros, Carbon Based Lifeforms, Mostfear, Flying Lotus, Floating Points, and Bibio. There a few others that we make sure to sonically shoutout across our music but we’re hoping you can pick up on those after listening to one of our new tracks.
You just released a thirty-minute mixtape that features unreleased music as well as your upcoming track “Pearl Jigsaw” which is set to release in February. Can you tell us about this mixtape and how it came to be?
This was a lot of fun to make, really can’t thank Tina enough for pulling through with this. At the end of 2019, we realised we had A LOT of new material that we were dying to showcase. However, as with releasing music nowadays, we realised it could take a while for these to see the light of day.
While gearing up for the release of our forthcoming single ‘Pearl Jigsaw’, we decided to do something visually different alongside teasing a few of the new ideas we were working on eventually releasing in 2020. The mixtape also features some top recommendations for burger restaurants in London.
You also released a visualizer along with the mixtape which features an animation created by Tina Punnerud. How did you come up with the concept of the visualizer being in a laundromat? What was it like working with Tina?
The visualizer was illustrated and animated by Tina, she’s worked on some really cool concepts for people like Liam Payne and Mae Muller so she was quite open to different ideas. We sent her an animation of a bar environment for inspiration, a few pictures of ourselves for reference and mentioned we wanted to include lots of easter eggs of our music in the video.
Tina suggested the idea of a laundromat as a unique setting that provided us the platform to add a few easter eggs, so we rolled with it. If you look closely, you can see a few of our old pieces of artwork, alongside a tease of the piece designed for our latest single.
Mental health is something that is really important to us at Femme Riot and we love hearing about how others maintain balance in their lives. As busy musicians, what practices do you implement to ensure your individual health and well-being are being taken care of?
Generally speaking, we believe it’s incredibly important to understand your individual wavelength and act accordingly. When you can come to terms with your reality and subsequently form applicable goals, it can alleviate a lot of personal pressure.
We also find that regular exercise alongside the food you consume has a significant impact on mental wellbeing – much more than is often given credit for. We both eat fairly healthily, of course, we still have our down days as everyone does.
What can fans expect from Ekcle in 2020?
This year we’re taking a big step outside of our comfort zones in order to challenge ourselves and push into uncharted sonic territory.
We’ve got a stack of really diverse releases including collaborations with a lot of extremely talented friends, remixes and a bunch of writing projects we’re really excited about. Our goal for this year is really taking a step back and thinking outside the box to provide something innovative and interesting to fans and first-time listeners of the Ekcle project.
What songs are you currently listening to?
Stupid Ways To Die – Fla.mingo
Lots of weird shit haha
You can stay up-to-date with Ekcle on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. Their new single “Pearl Jigsaw” can be found here. Check out their music below!
FEMME RIOT 