Hyperdub

A. Just Vybe (Soule:Power Mix)

AA. Step 2 Funk

Fatima Al Qadiri is a multidisciplinary artist and musician from Kuwait. In just a few years, she has quickly built a reputation as a conceptual artist, exploring themes informed both by her own background and global pop culture, through a number of highly acclaimed EPs, multimedia projects and writings. She is also a founding member of the production team Future Brown.

Fatima's debut album is called 'Asiatisch', and as the track titles suggest, the record provides a simulated road trip through an imagined China. Musically, the album is an homage to that quietly influential sub-strain of grime, often loosely termed 'sinogrime' due to its preoccupation with Asian motifs and melodies, pioneered by the likes of Wiley and Jammer at the beginning of the 2000s in East London.

'Asiatisch' is a provocation which asks more questions than it answers. The title is the German word for Asian. Unlike its title, however, the music on 'Asiatisch' revolves around the fantasies of East Asia as refracted through pulpy Western pop culture, in particular Hollywood, literary fiction, music, cartoons and advertising.

Fatima asks what is meant by the term 'Asian' in a digital age of viral interchange and the hi-speed trading of cultural bytes; the concept of 'shanzhai' proves pivotal, a term whose meaning stems from a wild, out of control zone of banditry, but which has come to be used to refer to the Chinese counterfeiting of Western brands and goods. While a number of producers have made takes on 'sinogrime' over the last few years, 'Asiatisch' is really the first record that attempts to articulate this weird complex of sonic interchanges between the West and China.

With the exception of the opening track, 'Shanzhai', a haunting cover of 'Nothing Compares to You' with nonsensical Mandarin lyrics, and the shimmering 'Loading Beijing', 'Wudang' and 'Jade Stairs' which sample and distort classical Chinese poetry staging an epic confrontation between China's ancient soul and the onslaught of the industrial factory machine, most of the tracks blend mallets, bells, gongs, flutes, steel drums and choral atmospherics with the searing synth-brass and the skittering drums of grime, playing melodies that are inflected as much by classic R&B as to synthetic versions of traditional Chinese music.

On "Dragon Tattoo" for example, stereotypical iconography of imagined China is slotted into a threatening, robotic R&B format. The carefree pirating of Western brands blurs into a soft-synth pirating of Chinese musical signs.'Asiatisch' is wrapped in pristine artwork by Babak Radboy from Shanzhai Biennial, and the music was given a 3D sheen by in demand mixer Lexxx.

Proclaiming both its love of both ancient and imagined China, 'Asiatisch' is a rare album that is both icily beautiful and conceptually layered. 

Tracklisting:
1. Shanzhai [for Shanzhai Biennial] ft. Helen Feng 

2. Szechuan 

3. Wudang 

4. Loading Beijing 

5. Hainan Island 

6. Shenzhen 

7. Dragon Tattoo 

8. Forbidden City 

9. Shanghai Freeway 

10. Jade Stairs 

One of the first fruits of Fhloston Paradigm rose out of the very popular 'King Britt presents Fhloston Paradigm' Hyperdub 12 in 2011, the name itself a fitting misspelling of the destination from the film Fifth Element, called 'Fhloston Paradise.' This initial EP won over many new fans with its inspired vision of how music with its DNA in a vintage future - formed by a childhood growing up with the peak of Science Fiction, from Close Encounters, to Blade Runner and Doctor Who - can sound. It hit upon a creative and adventurous way to fly above the needless analog and digital binary and represent both sides.

'The Phoenix', King Britt's debut album as Fhloston Paradigm is unlike anything he's done before, extending out of the principals laid down by the early EPs and excelling in turning beautiful production and a mind brimming with rich mental imagery into an album that reflects and ties together sci-fi's musical history and concepts without being weighed down by them, and has a strong running through it without the pressure of overbearing concept.

The album rides up and down in mood, opening with the claustrophobic paranoia of 'Portal 1's slicing roto-blades and solemn chords, next to the desolate, slow-building ultra-rhythmic techno of 'Race to the Moon'. Then there are pockets on the album, especially with the introduction of Pia Ercole's aquatic-operatic vocals, that sound as if optimistic space age exotica is being tested against the more amorphous sonics of modern electronica. There are also moments of bleakness, with 'Chasing Rainbows' a metallic drum machine work out pitted against rubbery synth chords that remind of broken techno, contrasted with moments of head spinning beatlessness, like the crackling glitches and subliminal messages of 'Perception', or the undulating sun-baked ambience of 'More'.

The album has two dramatic peaks; first, the gorgeous anthemic soul of 'Never Defeated' with vocalist Rachel Claudio repeating a tense lyric over fretless bass, gently building in melodies, vocals breaking away into harmonies; the other is an unusual take on dub techno with 'The Phoenix' which builds an icy synth sequence over spacey, dubbed out shimmering drum patterns, feeding in tendrils of counter-melody and echo. Then there's the racing 'Never Forget' all sirens and sea-sick bassline.

The album finishes on the delicate 'Light On Edge' with Natasha Kmeto delivering a sighing repetitive vocal over a delicate mesh of bleeps, whooshes and soft chords. This is emotive and imaginative music, for deep voyaging.

Ikonika has always been a maverick talent and her music has always been fun ' aside from a reputation for being one of the best DJs in the business, the prescient electronics of her 2010 debut 'Contact, Want, Love, Have' were something of a prequel to what people started to call post-dubstep.

Her citric synths, brash tone clashes and cluttered video game-inspired genre mangles came to her naturally, before legions of young producers got in on the act. According to Ikonika The word 'Aerotropolis' comes from being a DJ living in one. I'm haunted and infatuated by it. Watching 'Gattaca' for the first time, I found myself relating to Vincent Freeman's ambition of reaching space and travelling somewhere better, getting high.  I'm constantly watching planes take off and twitching that I didn't get a booking this weekend, needing to play out.'

The '80s is still a big touchstone for this album, but the angle is very different, Ikonika says This new album plays on an inspiration I wished I had focused on more growing up. I started fantasising about making freestyle house and early pop wishing I was a little older at that time so I could actually have made this music. This time around the feeling is a confident brashness that takes on older genres, brushes them off, and gives them a colourful shakedown.

I thought about how video games consoles were being championed at the time when a lot more music machines were being made. That connection led me to use sounds from older drum machines and synths, balancing old school and modern techniques.

The album opens with the gentle posi-drone of 'Mise En Place' before breaking into Ikonika's first track to feature vocals, 'Beach Mode (Keep It Simple)' featuring Jessy Lanza, whose joyous lyrics set the tone for the rest of the album.  'Mr Cake', up next, is a bold electro-pop track with a gentle bounce. Ikonika talks about letting the sound take flight, and the positively soaring melodies of 'Eternal Mode' attest to that, roaring out over chiming italo-disco style arpeggios.

'Completion' is about spacious ambience before 'Manchego' breaks out into playful stop-start jacking house with a fat bass line.  'Let A Smile Be (Y)our Umbrella' is a mix of warm tightly-balanced chords and minimal finger snaps. 'Mega Church's mood is reflected in its title; playing out on huge, reverbed claps and an ocean of rippling organ. 'Cryo' is a dark flight with ominous chords and thunderclap snares, while 'You Won't Find It Here' is a combination of cold bleeps and happy synths stabs.

The album ends with 'Zen Sizzle', a solemn and contained track, but with a goofy melody running through. These songs positively glisten and sparkle. This is an album with a big heart and a lot of confidence, creativity and joyful direction.

Tracklisting:
Side A:

1. Mise En Place

2. Beach Mode (Keep It Simple) Feat. Jessy Lanza

3. Mr. Cake

4. Practice Beats

1. Eternal Mode

2. Completion V.3

3. Manchego

4. Let A Smile Be (Y)our Umbrella

1. Lights Are Forever

2. Mega Church

3. Cryo

1. Backhand Winners

2. You Won't Find It Here

3. Zen Sizzle