Ikonika, on catching the attention of Kode9 and more…

Ikonika

Embracing new technology is a pre-requisite these days for producers of electronic music and its many variants – indeed, most current button-pushers do so with vigour and eagerness. The increasing popularity of Serato and Ableton in live sets pays testament to that forward thinking experimentalism, with only handful of admirably obstinate DJs spinning the black wax of vinyl.

25-year-old Sara Abdel-Hamid, aka Ikonika, heads the charge of fresh, youthful producers who are experimenting with the boundaries of the mid range, and most importantly, synths. Her debut single “Please/Simulacrum” marked a watershed for Hyperdub – the dark, cavernous bass music of Burial, The Bug and Kode9 himself quickly extrapolated to vivid, melodious music. Releases by Zomby, Darkstar and Samiyam followed, and Abdel-Hamid points to the presence of old school Nintendo and Sega sounds as possible reasons for this sudden influx.

Abdel-Hamid traces her technological lineage back to her childhood days spent playing video games: “My older sisters would be out raving and I’d be on my Megadrive. Obviously it will have something in you, pressing these buttons is like making a beat at the same time. Just being brought up around computers is like seeing a change and I think seeing the internet grow has something to do with it.”

But her musical journey began in distinctly different surroundings, with the music room at her school in Hounslow serving as the hangout for her and guitarist friends to indulge in their passion for post-hardcore music.

An introduction to a Skream mix in 2005 soon shifted her focus to the emerging sounds of dubstep: “I fell in love with it, and I remember saying I can do this, and it sort of went from there.”

Regular trips to FWD cemented her newfound passion, and a “shitty Toshiba laptop” served as the port for all her early work, with ‘Please’ and ‘Millie’ created with only a copy of Fruity Loops and a “simple bleep sample”.

Abdel-Hamid’s work soon caught the attention of Kode9, and following some correspondence over message boards, she joined the Hyperdub roster: “Being a big fan of Burial and Kode9, it just seemed a bit unreal in a way, cause when I was making these tracks I was thinking, ‘Yeah I’m gonna get signed by the end of this year but I don’t know who with.

“I didn’t really initially see myself on Hyperdub. But after I started thinking about it I was like yeah ok, this could work, we have the same kind of values, and I think that’s really important.”

Ikonika’s debut LP Contact, Love, Want, Have looms, and Abdel-Hamid cites it as a “continuation of what I’m doing, but its more of an introduction to people that don’t know me”. Lead single ‘The Idiot’ displays a more percussive side to her music, and reins in on the atonal, sometimes dissonant nature of her sound: “It’s me not being boring anymore! I’m just moving on, filling the gaps, but having enough space at the same time.”

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