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"You Probably Think Death is Coming For You": The New Ikonika is Dark, Gritty, and Finally Free

The Hyperdub producer won't hide behind her music anymore - instead, she's getting more badass with age.
Catch Ikonika along with Kode9, Mala, DJ Spinn, Taso, Scratcha DVA at Hyperdub's 10-Year Anniversary party at Verboten tomorrow, September 18, at Verboten. 

Turning 30 sucks, until you actually do it (then you realize it's not that bad). It's not the embrace of full-blown adulthood that's a drag, but the bouts of intense self-reflection that come with it - the nights spent agonizing about what the fuck you've done with your life, and what comes next. Maybe this is the reason why Ikonika (aka Sara Abdel-Hamid) is sipping some really nice Macallan scotch when I call her up on a recent evening. The bottle was a gift from her longtime mentor and Hyperdub label boss Kode9, for her 30th birthday, which she celebrated a few days ago.

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"I've been on the [Hyperdub] label for quite a lot now. I signed in 2008, and now it's 2014," she says. "What have I achieved? Nothing." She lets loose a low and raspy laugh. "Yeah… I'm feeling my age."

The funny thing is, Ikonika's music these days suggests anything but the onset of "old age." Her most recent release, a seven-track EP called 'Position'was described by Hyperdub as Ikonika in "straight-up banger mode." What that really means is this is Ikonika's version of tough-as-shit club tracks - percussive numbers built for bodies jammed into peak-time warehouse raves.

The title track sets a Ludacris (!) sample on top of pummeling, grainy drum sounds and arpeggiated synths. 'Praxis' is lighter and airier, with a silvery melody straight out of a retro video game (she's been a big gamer for most of her life), and a bassline that recalls her roots in dark, early-2000s UK dubstep. There's also a remix of 'Mega Church' by the industrial techno god Perc in there. "I love that idea of, right in the middle of a DJ set, you put on a Perc tune and everything just melts. Nobody really knows what's going on. You probably think death is coming for you." We both crack up. "I like that idea of shock treatment in the middle of a DJ set," she concludes.

The funny thing is, the ''Position' EP, with its growling, muscled club tracks and pounding rhythms, represents a complete departure from her last release - last year's 'Aerotropolis'. That album was a shiny, expensive-sounding production full of throwback boogie funk jams that focused primarily on Ikonika's historical strength; kaleidoscopic, synth-led melodies. Instead of being grounded in the body and the physical space of a club, 'Aerotropolis' was based on the ideas of getting high, out of this earth, and being a DJ that flies and tours. "All of those things are interlinked," she says. The record was also loosely inspired by the 1997 sci-fi film Gattaca -a biopunk drama starring Ethan Hawke as a guy living in a futuristic society who dreams of travelling into space.

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A former film student, Ikonika craves visual stimulation while she makes music. She gravitated towards "something cheesy, something sci-fi, really grainy and shit" while producing 'Position' - movies like Metropolis and weird advertisements from the 80s she finds on YouTube. 'Strawberry Underlay', she admits, was inspired by an episode of Masterchef.

Abdel-Hamid suspects that her visual approach to music is what helped her get the attention of Hyperdub boss Kode9, who has a PhD in philosophy and was teaching sonic culture at the University of East London when she first started sending him tracks in the mid 2000s. Iknonika in turn, was drawn to the way Kode9 injected melodies into his DJ sets - "he was playing tunes by Zomby, Rustie, and Joker. He made things a little more colorful."

So what's the real reason behind Ikonika's turn from expensive, synth-led productions to dirty, clanging club tracks? The answer is a combination of both practical and existential forces.

On a practical level, she'd traded her Moog synth for a Roland Juno-106 owned by her good friend Bok Bok, a co-founder of London's futuristic, club-leaning label, Night Slugs. When the time came for the switcheroo back, Bok Bok wasn't ready to give up the Moog, so he passed her two 80s-era drum machines; a Cassio RZ-1 and a Sequential Circuits DrumTraks. One of the chips was slightly broken, which resulted in the gritty, fucked up sounds that are all over 'Position'. "'Aerotropolis'was so shiny and clean - I made an effort to be technically good - and it turns out that I didn't really need to have all that. The whole point of being an electronic producer these days, I think, is to experiment with [machines]… use them the wrong way, I guess," she says. Given that her DJ sets have long been known for being slamming, eclectic romps through a variety of club dynamics, her newfound grit also wasn't really that new at all.

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On a more personal level, Ikonika says that the dirty feel of 'Position' also has to do with her wanting to feel like a punter.  "I was analyzing the last decade and what it meant. How timid I was. I was always trying to hide behind my music, trying to create a world, trying to escape," she says. "My expression of my reality is turning into more of an object that's solid now, instead of something that's dreamy and wavy and in the clouds."

As a result, 'Position' is more physical, having more to do with the body, because of "me turning this age, being very comfortable in my skin now." Let's not forget that Ikonika's profile on SoundCloud describes her as "Queen of the Kaka" - "kaka" being a funny way to say "shit." So what 'Position' really represents, I think is Ikonika finally coming to terms with herself - the whisky-swilling, obscenity-laced punter who prefers being in a dark and grungy club to fantastical flights of fancy.

What's next? She's asking herself the same question. Early next year, she'll release a handful more club tracks for Night Slugs' 'Club Constructions' series. But after that? "Where do I go from here? Who knows," she says with a chortle. "I might end up selling all my gear and buying new shit. If I get bored I just put my rig on eBay and use that money to buy something else. It's nice. You know?"

@MichelleLhooq is assuming the squatting position on Twitter. 

Catch Ikonika along with Kode9, Mala, DJ Spinn, Taso, Scratcha DVA at Hyperdub's 10-Year Anniversary at Verboten tomorrow, September 18, at Verboten. Tickets are available here. Plus, grab your copy of Ikonika's Position EP here.

More from the Hyperdub crew: 
"I Pretty Much Grew Up Going To Sun Ra's House": an Interview With Fhloston Paradigm
Hyperdub & Me: a Ten-Year Romance
HYPERDUB'S JESSY LANZA LIKES DJ RASHAD AND THE CAT DADDY