SONIKKU.

With the kind of production we’d expect to hear on a Charli XCX mixtape, and collaborations with many artists in that same musical sphere (HANA, LIZ, SOPHIE), SONIKKU is ditching the Sega sound chip and 16-bit house he once heralded and is establishing himself as a fully-fledged pop artist, delivering the big bangers your weekend needs.

As he prepares to release his first album Joyful Death, with features ranging from Little Boots to Chester Lockhart and Douglas Dare, we spoke to SONIKKU about his musical transformation, how he came to work with critical darling SOPHIE, and the queer community’s decades-spanning connection to dance music.

How did you first get into music?

I remember playing around with a really shitty cheap laptop when I was a teenager, I was trying to copy Lady Gaga