“Contact, Love, Want ,Have”: Ikonika

After leaving her childhood post-hardcore band, Sara Abdel-Hamid aka Ikonika found a copy of FL4, tried making the hip hop and r'nb she loved and followed her dream of becoming a producer, musician or DJ. While some may have been put off by the style's focus on and [in the early day's at least] stigma for being the preserve of the boys based in South London, she quickly achieved all three thanks to dubstep.

Her experimental rough cut ‘Please’ came to the attention of successful label Hyperdub [home to Darkstar, Kode9 and Burial] in 2007. She's been in demand ever since. From raw takes on DJ Mujava's 'kwaito' hit "Township Funk" to mixes of The Brown Acid and top DJ sets all over the UK to "top tracks of 2009" in end of year rundowns.

Opening up the dub genre to yet more innovative production, her playful touches -pitchbending, crushed sounds and technological timbres - create tracks that wade through the opportunities that electronic cut 'n' pasting has without getting too serious. Reliance on synths rather samples mean it's all original cuts' and her tracks' mutant behaviours ensure debut LP "Contact, Love, Want, Have" navigates the difficult terrain of UK dance by striding on ahead no matter what this week's micro-trend is.

Hyperdub release "Contact, Love, Want, Have" on 6th April 2010.