Powerhouse producers Amy Wiles & Leena Punks are no strangers to the scene, racking up millions of plays and seeing huge support on their records for labels like Anjunabeats, Anjunadeep, Stress Records, and more. Hailing from the UK, they’ve honed their sound independently, crafting and capturing that euphoric feeling people search for on the dance floor.
After a smashing debut record from Amy Wiles on Anjunabeats as part of the rising stars series, she has gone on to remix seminal artists like Above & Beyond, Kyau & Albert, Farius and gardenstate, supporting Above & Beyond at the iconic London venue Printworks. Leena Punks made her Anjunabeats debut with ‘On The Floor’ as part of their Rising EP series last year. It became one of two Leena Punks tracks to feature as BBC Radio 1’s ‘Hottest Record’, earning support from MEDUZA, Gorgon City, MK and more. Alongside upcoming shows at Creamfields, EH1 Festival and more, the pair are set to play a monster b2b set at the legendary Tomorrowland festival later this month.
17th July marked their long awaited collaborative debut, with a stunning single ‘Sweet Feeling‘, packed full of euphoric feeling, breakbeat drums, and uplifting melody. To celebrate this release, we asked Amy and Leena all about their inspirations, how they worked together, and production tips for aspiring producers!
Thanks for chatting to us Amy and Leena! Can you tell us about the inspirations behind the track and how you worked together?
I started writing this track at the end of 2021 so it’s been a long time coming. There was no real specific inspiration behind the track, I just sat down at the end of summer and had a chord progression in my head that I wanted to get down. Once I did that I then found the ‘Sweet Feeling’ vocal sample, and after I put that in it all seemed to really flow from there.
I tend to have two types of days in the studio, one where everything goes super smoothly and everything just comes to me and sounds right, or those where I try to write a new idea and nothing is really gelling together.
Once I’d written the ideas, the project basically sat on my hard drive for a good year. By this point myself and Leena were really good mates, not just in the music industry but also outside of it. We had the same friendship group and would hang out all the time. We had always spoken about working on a collaboration together and this one came to mind straight away because I knew it would work really well with her sound and breaks style drums.
So I sent her the project and we went back and forth on it from that point on. I’m really happy with how the track has turned out, I think it’s such a great combination of both of our styles and it’s mad to have a track out on Anjunabeats with one of my best pals.
Amy Wiles
Amy came to me with the original idea which you can still listen to in the chorus. I fell in love with the trance-y lead and those lush pads. I then developed the idea into a full track. I really love fusing breaks which gives a very grounding effect with the euphoria of trance and at the time I had just released ‘On The Floor’ and was also working on my collab with Sub -X ‘Dawn of the Dead’ which was also a breakbeat track.
I started by adding breakbeat loops on different channels that I edited and filtered along with a good kick which I sidechained to the bass and I then worked on the breakdown and drop. I’m quite picky about breakbeats and I don’t want to use the same sounds so it takes me a while to pick the perfect kick or elevate the sound of the breaks loop as much as I can so that it best matches the energy of the track I’m working on.
Leena Punks
How did you work on the track together?
Once I’d written the ideas, the project basically sat on my hard drive for a good year. By this point myself and Leena were really good mates, not just in the music industry but also outside of it. We had the same friendship group and would hang out all the time. We had always spoken about working on a collaboration together and this one came to mind straight away because I knew it would work really well with her sound and breaks style drums.
So I sent her the project and we went back and forth on it from that point on. I’m really happy with how the track has turned out, I think it’s such a great combination of both of our styles and it’s mad to have a track out on Anjunabeats with one of my best pals.
Amy Wiles
Can you share some insight into your production process?
Like I did with this track I tend to start with chord progressions and melodic elements. When writing I try not to force it if I’m not feeling too creative. Most of the time ideas tend to come to me at really weird times, one of the most noticeable times is during the early hours of the morning when I can’t sleep in bed. I then have to grab my laptop and start writing down chords at 4am and once it’s done I’ll shut my laptop and go back to sleep and then re open that project when I’ve got a day in the studio.
This is how I’d say 70% of my projects have started. When I feel like I’ve got something really good going I’ll end up spending all day on it, with breaks of course, but I’ll get a rough arrangement and full track down and then come back to it a few days / or week later to start tweaking. Sending my rough ideas and projects to my producer mates and my mum actually is a good way of getting some initial feedback. I trust their judgement!
Amy Wiles
In terms of hardware I use Behringer’s MS-1 as a midi keyboard and program my drum loops on Roland TR-8 or draw the notes straight into Ableton if I want to have more control over the sound. Depending on the track I also use Behringer’s TD-3 for acid synths and quite rarely I use Model D (Behringer not Moog but open to donations lol)
Leena Punks
Any top tips for aspiring producers?
Find some sounds that you really like and suit your ‘sound’. I tend to keep going back to using similar style plucks and chords in my records. Each track I’ve worked on sounds really different still and has it’s own vibe, but there’s always those one or two sounds that make it sound like ‘me’ if that makes sense. And my label have also noticed this. I would also advise to keep up to date with dance music in general. What’s trending, what’s being played on radio, what you like of course. You don’t have to like it all, but it helps you to define what you want to do as a producer and the route you want to take I think personally.
Amy Wiles
A top tip for aspiring DJs/ Producers? So many! It depends on the level of production – I think as a general rule when starting out it’s to carve space for the frequency of each individual element in your project to avoid a muddy mix and being a master at sidechaining. For a more advanced hack, I recently started experimenting with adding sonic variation to a breakbeat loop. You can do this in Ableton by duplicating the audio file a few times, setting the clips to complex mode and pitching the clip up and adding more FX to the subsequent clips. You then flat/ freeze the entire track, consolidate and split the new midi to 1/8 notes. You then loop the bar and add the random plugin from your MIDI effects (and set Choices to 3 and scale to 8 so you don’t mess up the original pattern).
You can also do this manually instead of using the random plugin but this way is more fun, at least for me. This does create a very interesting breakbeat loop and allows for sonic movement in your percussion (that’s usually rare). You can also then chop and use different variations of those clips throughout the track to increase anticipation. There are so many ‘hacks’ though, the trick is to know the basics well and then keep experimenting.
Leena Punks
‘Sweet Feeling’ is a stunning summer time record, fitting perfectly on the Anjunabeats label. With a blend between prog and breaks drums, the uplifting strings in the breakdown matched with the melody is a real ‘arm round your friends’ moment, destined to send some tears into the eyes of ravers. While uplifting, it’s still a proper dance floor tune, with crisp, clean sound design throughout. We can’t wait to hear this played out on the festival stage.
To listen and buy “Sweet Feeling” head here!
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