Just after a great set on It's The Ship 2018, we had a chance to talk to Enoch An. One of the three winners for the Deck Selecta competition this year where DJs from around Asia sent in their mixtapes to win a chance to play on the annual music festival.
Coming from South Korea, this up and coming DJ had his humble start as a composer, eventually moving into DJing. What started as an interest in rhythm games 5 years ago has now brought him to one of Asia's largest stages.
ADM: So tell us how did you get your start into DJing?
EA: I started 5 years ago while I was still in school playing a whole bunch of rhythm games in arcades. At the time, a lot of the rhythm games had EDM and I really liked it. From there I started to think about how I would like to put them together if I were a DJ.
So I decided to download some DJ apps on my iPad and started messing around. Sure enough I loved what I was doing and I decided after a year to look more into DJing as something for myself.
ADM: It's been quite a journey since your start till now, how do you feel about playing on It's The Ship this year?
EA: An absolutely amazing experience. I came two years ago as a guest and I loved what happened and had an amazing time. At that time even though there weren't a lot of Asian DJs playing, I had a great time.
I'm glad to see more Asian DJs playing for It's The Ship in the recent years and am definitely proud to represent both Asia and Korea on It's The Ship this year.
Yesterday was amazing to be able to play a lot of my originals on the ship. As a DJ, I can tell you that much of the scene in Korea is very commercial and the diversity for music in the club scene isn't there. Not that it's a bad thing, it's just that we don't have a lot of space to experiment in clubs as compared to playing at a festival.
While most of the Korean DJs I know normally play commercial EDM everywhere, I wanted to see if I could do my part to show the world a different side of the Korean music scene and make my mark as a global DJ.
ADM: And how would you say you did that in your set yesterday?
EA: Through my original track XDMR. When I got selected through the Deck Selecta competition I knew another DJ from Korea, Juncoco, was also playing on the ship. Looking at the lineup, I could tell that the audience for It's The Ship would really enjoy commercial music.
I decided from there that while Juncoco might want to represent Korea's Commercial Dance Scene, I wanted to focus on representing Bass and Hard Dance music. I wanted to play something that I love and feel could reach out to people.
Personally for me, music is experimental and I see it's a challenge. With XDMR, I was able to fuse Korean Traditional Vocals and Instruments together with the music I love and bring it out to the world.
ADM: So do you have anything you'd like to say to any up and coming DJs from Korea who are planning to follow in your footsteps?
EA: Play what you love and even if it's commercial it's totally ok. I just hope that everyone who's planning to be a DJ can widen their own horizons and show the world that Korean DJs can do more.
Be sure to follow Enoch on these platforms!