Here is the review ENE received from Jim Haynes written for the Wire. Following the review is a letter we wrote addressing specific points of his review. Enjoy!

Wire Issue 268 June 2006
Review By Jim Haynes

How a self-descibed "pan-global beat smuggling operation" was received at a noise festival might be a plausible question, but a more damning one should be: why any one would stoop to this, the lowest common denominator of " pan-global" music? ENE (the sole work of Richmond, Virginia's Scott Hudgins) opens his set intent on recreating the Muslimgauze chimera of Middle Eastern instrumentation and Western electronica. But Hudgins lacks the programing panache and political fire of the late Bryn Jones. "Pimp My Ride In Downtown Democratised Baghdad" is little more than a generic triphop groove spiced up with overused tribal rhythms. elsewhere, Hudgins tries his hand at plunderphonia with a send-up to Lionel Ritchie's sentimental " Hello" to little comedic effect. Neither politically acerbic nor culturally witty, ENE's efforts sound bland and non-placed.

Dear Wire,
Thank you for taking the time to review the most recent ENE release "Live At 804Noise fest 2004" in your Outer Limits section of issue 268. After reading the review it was obvious that Jim Haynes paid a little too much attention to the one sheet that has a few errors in it. We didn't write it, but we did ok it, so a small mea culpa is due to him from us on that one.

ENE for that performance was myself and Robert Miller who started the group with me in 1990. This was our last performance together since he relocated to the west coast, and this release represents the style ENE is when we are both present. Please let him share some of the blame for "stooping to the lowest common denominator of pan-global music". He put in a lot of work for that live set of improvised songs. Isn't the phrase " pan-globalism" redundant anyway? We've gotta get rid of that from the one sheet.

In Jim's review he objected to us playing a noise festival. While few noise headz would consider ENE a true noise group, we have remixed noise groups, played many noise shows and sets with groups like, The Ultra Fuckers, The Haters, Emil Beaulieu, Monolith Zero, Cristal and Zbigniew Kartowski to name a few. Locally ENE has participated in the 804Noise collective since it was created. Thankfully, no one asked ENE to not play the festival because because we were not "noise" enough. We were asked to come back and play in 2005 as well as the upcoming 2006 804Noise fest, so we must be doing something they like or think is noisy is some way. See ya there! It's true we are fans of Bryn's work as Muslimgauze. We have a few cds of his and have done some remixes, but his politics are a little one sided and myopic. These are not times to be politically ossified, especially in the US. Beside that, I wouldn't personally want to emulate someone who is like that and also sadly, dead. It is too bad that Jim failed to get our joke in the face of the horror that is Bush's war on terror in our song "Pimp My Ride In Downtown Democratized Baghdad". It is meant to deride the vanity of GWB'S attempts in Iraq to superimpose his way of life on another culture. Think about it for a second, it's funny. Perhaps the title of the song is just too specifically rooted in American culture to be obvious to everyone. As well, our cover of Lionel Ritchie's "Hello" is in no way meant to be ironic or comic. It was a pleasure to play a song of such pathos that is steeped in psychedelic sadness and loss. Good ol' Lionel was feeling it when he wrote that one, and we were too, when we played it.

Sincerely,
Scott Hudgins