Whilst February brings the shortest month, along with my personal annual growth and much merriment for me, it also breaks the omnipresent lull in the release schedule over Christmas and New Year’s. This coming year appears to be no exception with the simply astounding selection of full length projects and announcements starting to form like Dr Manhattan did, out of human tissue, thin air and matter.

As I’ve previously mentioned in earlier installments of this column, both Starkey and Scuba have long players ready for consumption, competently and simultaneously representing both ends of the dubstep spectrum. Scuba’s Triangulation positively floats in places, combating skeletal 85bpm tempos as much as the house tempo; whilst Starkey’s Ear Drums & Black Holes connects the dots between Philly swagger, his own deft compositional ear, and UK grime music featuring vocal appearances from P Money, Cerebral Vortex and the Brighton-based vocalist Anneka.

Meanwhile Hyperdub’s synthesizer temptress Ikonika, is the first artist in the promised glut (including Darkstar and Cooly G) to ready their album projects for Kode 9’s fearlessly inventive label and her work on Contact, Love, Want, Have will undoubtedly push her further into the limelight come its April release. Wrestling with the pitch of here primitive synths on early standout “Idiot,” she’s successfully harnessed the iridescent properties of the Scandinavian 8bit skweee genre, enabling her computer to sing in new and piercing ways; but it’s her fusion of this granular harmony with her tempestuous drums that really cements her importance in the genre.

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