Fact Mix 846: Ehua

Ehua ventures further into the evocative expansiveness of her sound, exploring deconstructed and experimental soundscapes.

London-based, Italian-Ivorian artist, producer and DJ Ehua makes music that drifts irresistibly between shadow and sensuality, formed from dense swirls of carefully crafted sound design and lethal percussive gymnastics that permeate space and envelop bodies, precision-engineered for loose, instinctual movement. Between her always outstanding residency at Milanese online radio station Radio Raheem, during which she has invited singular talents such as Scratchclart, KG, TSVI and Air Max ’97 to share air time and a series of killer releases, including Diplozoon for femme culture and last year’s Aquamarine, for which the producer reconnected with the like minds at Nervous Horizon for six richly varied and intensely atmospheric tracks, it’s clear that Ehua is fast becoming one of the defining voices in contemporary dance music. Her role as part of the cultural collective GRIOT and co-editor of GRIOTmag, which celebrate and amplify art, music and fashion from Africa and the African diaspora, solidifies and emphasises the formidable scope of Ehua’s practice.

For her Fact mix, Ehua ventures further into the evocative expansiveness of her sound. “For this mix I wanted to explore deconstructed and experimental soundscapes, with each blend aiming at taking the listener to a new and different sonic place,” she explains. “I recorded it on my Pioneer XDJ-RX in the new studio I’ve just moved in to and it includes recent and unreleased tracks spanning across a wide range of genres and BPMs (90-180) that have accompanied me during this transitional period and that channel my chaotic energy at the moment, as well as the hectic dystopian flux that has now become our reality, which is both exciting and scary.” Acting as both guide and agitator, she winds through patches of eerily smudged and jaggedly chilly atmosphere from Dean Blunt and Josi Devil, sections of humid buzz and low end dread from Ylan, Xades and Seven Orbits, caverns of spacious swell from Toumba and SIM, thermometer-popping propulsion from TSVI, Klahrk and Griffit Vigo, whiplash-inducing pace from Amazondotcom, Soreab and Ouri, the disorientating liminal space between AYA, Little Dragon and Kelsey Lu, before finally leaving us helpless in a passage of unsettling radioactive ambient from Ehua herself.

You can find Ehua on Bandcamp, SoundCloud and Instagram. Tune in every month to her Radio Raheem residency and check out GRIOT’s website and Instagram.

Tracklist:

Dean Blunt – ‘Damaged’
Josi Devil – Unreleased
Forest Drive West – Unreleased
Yilan – ‘Static Void’
Xades – ‘Zins’ (Thodén Remix)
Seven Orbits – Unreleased
Toumba – ‘Floating on The Dead Sea’
SIM – ‘3oz of it’
Ehua – Unreleased
TSVI – Unreleased
McGregor – ‘Hare’
Klahrk – ‘MF.MT’
Griffit Vigo – ‘Phola’
Amazondotcom – ‘The Most Foreign Country’
Rose Bonica – ‘What You See Is Not What I See’
Soreab – ‘Serac Fall’
Ouri – ‘Chains’
AYA – ‘dis yacky’
Little Dragon – ‘Drifting Out’ (Kelsey Lu Remix)
Ehua – Unreleased