Ikoqwe is a new project from Portuguese sensation Batida and activist rapper Ikonoklasta. The track, ‘VaiVai’, out now on Beating Heart Music, is a vibrant afrobeat groove. The video sees the duo, masked with make-shift antennae and riding through the desert in a Candongueiro (Angolan Taxi), in a cartoon style escapade, journeying, eventually launching up to space where perhaps this track belongs with its otherworldly rhythms, laser-like zaps and cosmic raps.

Ikonoklasta is a rapper who became an iconic and who has been into music, dance, visual, plastic and radio arts under the Batida alias. Taking root from Angola, Portugal, it’s impossible to not get sucked into the layered shuffling backdrop of beats and organic percussion peppered with computer-game style blips and bleeps.

BBC 6 Music’s Gilles Peterson explains, “There’s certain types of music that come out of Portugal. All of this is sort of linked together for me by this one producer who goes by the name of Batida. It’s just on another level in terms of how he presents his show, how he approaches his music making, whether he is DJing or performing live, or adding visuals, philosophically just how he goes about his business.”

The Nest is an atmospheric alternative rock band from Southern Finland. Their moody music explores the sacredness of nature, life and death, love and mystery. The singer and keyboard player, Sally Armbrecht, is originally from the US.

Both the bass player, Markus Lehtinen, and the drummer, Tuomas Villikka, hail from Finland, and it is this interesting collision of culture and musical tastes that makes The Nest’s sound unique.

The music relies on a contraposition of heavy bass and drums with soaring female vocals and poetic lyrics. Influences are from bands as diverse as NIN, Dead Can Dance, Jefferson Airplane, Florence and The Machine, and The Doors.

Tracklist:

01. Tena Timetraveller

02. River Mnemosyne

03. Nevermore

04. We All Bleed Red

05. Koski Listener

06. The Watcher

07. DeathClock

08. This House Breathes Fear