PRE-ORDER: Ikonika – DCKHDBTCH [Planet Mu]

Over the last couple of years, since the dazzling blast of Ikonika’s ‘Please’ first electrified listeners, the impact of the sort of hyperchromatic fare she’s renowned for putting together has dulled slightly. Its less due to any failings on her part – or on the part of many producers writing tracks within similar regions – than a sense of over familiarity, the deliciously new and alien feel of those early tracks gradually settling down to something approaching a formula. Having said that, out of the many synth driven mutations currently bursting out of dubstep’s cracked exoskeleton Ikonika’s sound retains an intangible brilliance that’s tough to isolate in many of her contemporaries. The muggy, lo-fi feel of her excellent Contact Love Want Have album was a welcome shot of gritty adrenaline, and this follow-up EP on Planet Mu retains many of its traits to much the same effect.

The DCKHDBTCH EP, then, is Ikonika doing what Ikonika does best. Hardly a complaint when what she does is so compulsive, though the tunes here largely fit with the languid flow of the first half of her album than the jet-propelled pace of the final few tracks. The title track will be instantly recognisable to anyone who’s been to see her play in the last year or so, though taken apart from the sheer pace and frenetic energy of her DJ sets it’s a considered move though purple-tinted territory. ‘Ingredients’ is cut from the same cloth, riding off a peculiar broken beat that never really goes anywhere, instead choosing to hang somewhere in space between head and floor. That’s perhaps the one criticism it’s possible to level at the EP – it’s a little tough to figure out where it’s supposed to take you – though as usual her ability to infuse even the most wispy tracks with a real sense of melancholy remains fully intact. Final track ‘Shouldn’t Be Here’ is its real gem then, all muted synth pads and distant vocals over a slow-mo house pulse. It points in an entirely new direction for her music, as it drifts into view and remains for what feels like an all too brief moment before disappearing again.

Words: Rory Gibb
Out: Today

Links:
www.myspace.com/ikonika

RECOMMENDED: Ikonika - Contact, Love, Want, Have [Hyperdub]

Ikonika becomes the second of the promised Hyperdub artists to deliver a full length album, post Kode 9's announcement of forthcoming HD material on Benji B's show last year; and thankfully Contact, Love Want, Have really delivers what is a "superbly strong and relentlessly inventive debut album."

Read the full review here: http://www.residentadvisor.net/review-view.aspx?id=7311

Link:
www.myspace.com/ikonika

PRE-ORDER: Ikonika - Idiot/Altered Natives Remix [Hyperdub]

Ikonika’s 'Contact, Love, Want, Have' album is a strikingly impressive vindication of the keen melodic sense displayed on her earlier releases. Even so, what’s so impressive about the album’s first single, 'Idiot,' is how seamlessly it reconciles the more lopsided aspects of a track like ‘Please’ with the kind of razor-sharp dancefloor material her DJ sets have brimmed with in the last year or so. Riding off an instantly recognisable and insanely catchy (seriously, I’ve spent the last two weeks wondering around shrieking it at people) bleep melody, it manages to pitch itself somewhere in the strange bass hinterlands where the most stripped-back and grimey London house meets the Megadrive-funk of Joker and Gemmy.

But even to reduce it to such a simplistic ‘Artist X meets Artist Y in the badly-lit back room of a dodgy basement club’ definition feels tantamount to sterilisation. Despite the ease at which it fits into its surroundings ‘Idiot’'s core melody is anything but straightforward, displaying a raw and distinctly human arrhythmia quite at odds with the delicately sequenced nature of so much dance music. Combined with a real sense of narrative movement – each successive cycle of the track sees a new layer of complementary counter-harmony added, building to a climax of slowly piroutetting bleeps more akin to Reich than Roska – the effect is dizzying and compulsively replayable. Watch the rewinds hit this beast hard.

The Altered Natives mix on the flip seems conscious of what it’s got to live up to, and it’s to his credit that he doesn’t attempt to mess with the original’s precarious chemistry. What we get instead is a precision rewiring of ‘Idiot'’s bottom end, streamlining Ikonika’s swagger-step mechanics for a driving house workout. Staying hypnotically swung throughout, incremental tonal shifts across its length reveal striking depths – it’s pretty strong testament to Altered Natives’ production skills that he’s put together a funky track that really needs to stay in the mix for its entire length to reveal its full power on a dancefloor. Along with Kyle Hall’s effortless fusion of Detroit and London styles on ‘Kaychunk,’ it points towards a bold fusion of styles that Hyperdub, as ever, continues to usher into wider consciousness.

Words: Rory Gibb
Out: 12th April



Link:
www.myspace.com/ikonika