NIK COLK VOID

Bucked Up Space (Editions Mego)

Much like Wales’ own Kelly Lee Owens, Nik Colk Void started out playing with a bunch of indie-rock also-rans (in her case, Norwich’s KaitO) but has since embraced electronics and club culture and in doing so found her true calling. A meticulous, obsessive student of sound she may be, but her vocal-free debut solo LP, Bucked Up Space, is never an arid exercise in abstraction.

Opener Interruption Is Good is a Daniel Avery-style techno banger, intricately crafted out of pulses and clicks; the bass in Romke is so deep it’s barely audible, the distant throb of a party at the centre of the earth; and Demna whisks the listener off on a thrilling tour of Berlin’s underground clubs aboard Kraftwerk’s Trans-Europe Express. But it’s the expansive FlatTime, which most closely resembles Colk’s previous work with Factory Floor, that proves most captivating – eight minutes of precision-tooled dancefloor bliss.

words BEN WOOLHEAD