Drum & Bass in Focus: Enta

Croydon-based Enta has exploded onto the UK’s underground in the last few years with his high-octane, face-melting brand of D&B. With releases on Souped Up, Hospital Records, Biological Beats and more, Enta is well on his way to becoming a huge name in British Drum & Bass. Today, we caught up with Enta to chat about his journey into production, how Croydon shaped his music taste, and his unique Jump Up/Neuro Funk hybrid productions.

From Video Games to Drum & Bass

Born and raised in Croydon, Liam Harrison AKA Enta first heard Drum & Bass through video games. “Games like Sonic would have Drum & Bass and breakbeat in the soundtrack,” he says, chatting from the University of the Creative Arts Epsom where he works as a sound technician. “That sparked my interest to go on YouTube and try to find more of that music, and that led me to Pendulum, Chase & Status and a lot of the big names at the time,” he says.

Soon, Liam discovered dubstep, garage and bass music. Croydon was home to pioneers like Skream and Coki, which inspired Enta to delve deeper into the scene. “I felt like there was a musical heritage there for me to explore,” he says.

Liam played drums as a kid. He’d put on dubstep and D&B mixes and drum along to them for hours, but it was only when he heard a track called “Infected Headphones” by Tyke that he felt inspired to learn how to produce. “It really grabbed my attention because of the way it took the Jump Up formula and twisted it into something weirder and darker,” Liam says. “It kind of challenged me, and that led me onto Playaz and Drum & Bass Arena and all of a sudden I heard this melting pot of different Drum & Bass styles.”

The Creation of Enta

Liam studied music tech at college and simultaneously went to squat raves and free parties in and around London, always gravitating towards the heavier, darker corners of D&B.

“In one of our lessons we studied Goldie’s Inner City Life,” Liam says. “The music tech teacher was a very angry man but I respect that he introduced us to this important part of the UK’s musical history.”

That’s when he knew music had to be his full-time career. “I was always plugging away, making beats,” he says. “They were terrible but I really enjoyed the process of creating music.”

Liam went to university in Bournemouth where he connected with people with similar music tastes, and soon started playing Jump Up sets around the city under his old alias Fluxy. Then he teamed up with another artist to create the Jump Up duo Flexor, and the pair became successful in Europe, but Liam found it hard to juggle college and his own projects so decided to go solo in 2016. “I wanted to follow my own path, focus on myself and make stuff that's a bit darker, a bit more honest, a bit more complex,” Liam says. "And that's when I decided to have a rebrand and change my name to Enta.”

Enta's Evolution

With the Enta project, Liam knew exactly the direction he wanted to go in. “I started producing more techie Jump Up fused with Neuro,” he says. “Artists like DJ Hazard inspired me to play a mix of tracks and make them sound consistent just through mixing.”

Enta’s breakout release came in the form of his 2019 EP Hanging in the Balance on Young Guns Recordings. “I saw that DJ Randall and DJ Brockie were playing the tunes from it, and I thought maybe this will go somewhere,” he says. “That motivated me to pursue this weird hybrid techie Jump Up/Neuro sound a little bit more.”

His instincts were right. More huge Drum & Bass artists started playing out his music, and Liam was soon releasing on massive labels such as Hospital Records, Audioporn, Souped Up, Soulvent, Eatbrain and Run.

This year has been Enta’s biggest to date. He played Beats for Love Festival in Czech Republic, Hospitality in Toulouse, and his closing set at Virus Recordings x Eat Brain in London’s Steel Yard sparked a mosh pit. He’s getting continuous support from Dillinja, Ed Rush and DJ Hazard and this year alone he’s released on Soulvent, made a remix for Play Me Records and released his If You Like This You’re a Prick EP on ThirtyOne Recordings. “It feels like I’ve finally found my place in Drum & Bass,” Liam says.

And he has some of his biggest projects to date coming up in 2025. “Next year is where things really start to heat up,” he says. “I have an EP coming out on Trendkill Records, an EP for Neuroheadz, and another EP for Biological Beats and Eat Brain. So lots and lots and lots of Neuro is coming.”