Ikonika – 'Aerotropolis' review
Dance music’s current retromania continues apace, the latest exhibit being Ikonika’s second LP which could, variously, have come out on Factory in 1983, Warp in 1991 or indeed any independent British dance label at any time between those two dates. While this doesn’t make for a bad record per se, the slavish devotion to the all things 80s – Italo-disco, Commodore64 sound files, Planet Rock electro – makes for a queasy sense of displacement.
Then again, perhaps that’s the intent. After all, the album is named after the theoretical idea of a city within an airport, conjuring plenty ideas of impermanence and flux. There’s also no harm in copying well, and Aerotropolis does that expertly: Let A Smile Be (Y)our Umbrella’s five-minute long build of variations on a theme has a confident restraint, and Cryo’s pulsating four-to-the-floor is all brooding warehouse goodness.
6/10
