Selections: Nik Void
In this regular feature, Selections, we invite DJs, producers and label heads to dig into their Bandcamp crates and share the contents of their digital collections. This week, ahead of her appearance at Semibreve’s digital festival, Nik Void highlights enriching, experimental electronic music: from exhilarating footwork hybrids to beautiful ambient compositions
Clubs around the world are shut, and opportunities to find new music out in the wild have been ripped from under our feet as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. While hearing new music played out by your favourite DJs will have to be put on hold due to these unprecedented circumstances, it’s never been easier, or more important, to support the artists and labels putting out EPs, albums and compilations in the midst of all the madness.
With tour cancellations and festival postponements leaving many members of the international electronic music community out of pocket, Bandcamp has become an even more vital platform for supporting the music you love, with 80% of all sales from the online music store going directly to artists and labels. In March, the platform announced it would be waiving its revenue share for all sales for one day, and on Friday 20th, took no cut from purchases made. In total, $4.3 million was spent on music over the course of 24 hours, all going straight to the creators. Throughout lockdown, Bandcamp continued to waive their fees on the first Friday of every month, as well as on 19th June (Juneteenth), when the platform donated 100% of its profits to the NAACP Legal Defence Fund. In July, it was announced that a fee-free "Bandcamp Friday" would take place on the first Friday of each month for the rest of 2020.
In this series, Selections, we’re inviting DJs, producers and label heads to dig into their digital crates and share the contents of their collections. In lieu of opportunities to discover new records on the dancefloor, Selections – along with radio shows and mixes – will give you the chance to nab sounds from the crates of tastemakers, and support the artists behind them while you’re at it. Win-win, right?
This week, ahead of her appearance at Semibreve’s digital festival, Nik Void highlights enriching experimental electronic music, from exhilarating footwork hybrids to beautiful ambient compositions. Void, who’s best known as one half of live techno outfit Factory Floor and one third of experimental electronic group Carter Tutti Void, played a rousing modular set at last year’s Semibreve. This year’s edition of the Portugeuse festival, where pioneers play usually alongside contemporary innovators, is a bit different. Forced to adapt for the digital landscape in 2020 due to COVID-19, this year’s programme will take place on 24th and 25 October via the festival’s website, and locally within the Monastery of São Martinho de Tibães, where a small, socially distanced audience will attend.
The online festival will feature specially commissioned music, both live and pre-recorded, as well as roundtable discussions and panels, audiovisual installations and workshops. Performances will come from the likes of Laurel Halo, Oliver Coates, Klara Lewis and Gustavo Costa, while there will also be newly recorded exclusive sound works from Jim O’Rourke, Beatriz Ferreyra and more. A panel discussion on post-pandemic editorial logic will feature Nkisi, Príncipe’s José Moura, Mike Harding and Rui Miguel Abreu. Nik Void will be joined by Alain Mongeau, Pedro Santos and Gonçalo Frota for a discussion focussing on the performative implications of the pandemic, with an emphasis on electronic music and sound art. Void will also hold an artistic residency at the festival.
You’ll be able to tune into Semibreve’s digital festival here.
In the meantime, dig into Nik Void’s Selections below.
“Be prepared for the defined compositional directions of Reinhold Friedl & Eryck Abecassis, a collaboration first born in Marseille. Bleak to touch but super exhilarating to digest once you get a chance to absorb what’s been presented to you. This is something I know I would benefit from experiencing it live, but the expert recording at Radio France is ultimately satisfying.”
“Tracks like ‘From The Cessation Of What’ tap into the natural rhythms of my psyche in a good way. Greg Fox is a multi-instrumentalist from New York whose percussive backbone embracing a multitude of influences gives us the gift of compositions that feel like something new. Check out Contact produced by Sun O)))’s Randall Dunn.”
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“Klara and I have collaborated together on a few occasions, so I was delighted when she asked me to design the layout for ‘Ingrid’, her fourth release on Editions Mego. ‘Ingrid’ is based on a looping cello, which long-form of 20--or-so minutes follows the progression of gradual granular disassembling and reassembling of a repetitive gesture to the state of a distorted madness - I have a big love for this record!”
“I have been a super-fan of Rian Treanor since his early releases in 2015 and his full-length ‘ATAXIA’. [I was] introduced to him by his father (Mark Fell, of course). With this release, the sounds are more robust, with a standalone confidence centred by pushing up the tempo, making complex hybrid footwork rhythms that will test your balance for sure.”
“Super excited to hear this record as a whole on its release on 30th October. The three tracks available with the pre-order are mind-blowing! Slick with production, but still retaining the textural signature sounds of early works which have been tipped into the emergence of his ethereal future thinking. Hints of his collaborators Kelly Moran and percussionist Eli Keszler dig deep. Can’t wait!”
“Out on Oren Ambarchi’s Black Truffle imprint, ‘Meith’ is a two-part composition by GRM’s director François Bonnet. ‘Meith’ has enduring qualities that exercise some form of hardship, ultimately uplifting and spiritual that, from experience, comes into full effect when listening on your own. The focus that it requires can physically draw you into a heavy black cloak if you let it, it's deeply personal.”
“‘~~~’ by Ana Roxanne was a record I went back to during the first lockdown period, as it gave me all I needed to keep me sane and zen. We have to wait until November for the second full release, but ‘Camille’ and ‘Suite pour l’invisible’ downloadable tracks on pre-order keep me happy. The sensitivity in her voice and choice of expression makes me want to listen more and more.”
“I first met Nik [Dawson, bookworms] In NY in 2014 when Factory Floor performed at the now defunct Kent 252. ‘Xenophobe’ is an album I like to revisit always. It merits layers of sonic appreciation - where each sound magnifies the other without blocking the view. The opening track ‘U more’ is uncomplicated and carefree, a master of masterpieces. I love it!”
“I will always hear and remember records released just before the pandemic in a significantly different way to any other records. And the fact this record unites two highly adventurous thinkers makes it more interesting. The art of this record is more in the method of making, the experimentation focused within a section of time.”
“I was lucky to have designed the sleeve for ‘Peel’, KMRU’s July release, and on doing so I became one of his biggest fans. ‘Jar’ is the follow-up, and again KMRU’s beautifully formed ambient pieces lure you into a heightened optimism with a steady pace. Tracks that allow time to mentally engage in all of the good things around you that so often get missed.”
