Klara Lewis and Nik Void are two musicians with a great deal in common. In a roundabout way, both come from the world of experimental rock and post-punk: Lewis as the daughter of Graham Lewis from seminal British band Wire; Void as guitarist and vocalist in KaitO before joining industrial disco group Factory Floor. Both are signed to the influential Editions Mego label, which has been Lewis’ home since 2014, with Void joining a few years later in partnership with Editions Mego chief Peter Rehberg as NPVR.
Earlier in the year Editions Mego released Void’s debut solo album, Bucked Up Space, a record produced from live improvisations – in collaboration with the audience, she says – and methodical studio processing. It’s one of the last scheduled Editions Mego releases following the sudden passing of Rehberg in 2021.
Collaboration is central to Void’s practice, something she shares with Lewis, who has worked with film composer Simon Fisher Turner and multidisciplinary artist and musician Rainier Lericolais on a series of live performances of their updated soundtrack to Walter Ruttmann’s classic 1927 silent film, Berlin: Die Sinfonie der Großstadt.
Despite developing divergent solo sound practices – in Lewis’ case, as an emotive manipulator of field recordings; for Void, through unconventional encounters with a range of analog and digital tools – both rightly earn the title of “sound sculptress”, and have each navigated the art space and the night club with equal aplomb. Indeed, it was during a show at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London that they first came into each other’s remit. Lewis supported Factory Floor for the premier of the group’s second DFA album, 25 25, in 2016, resulting in a flurry of collaborative shows in the UK the following year.
In 2020 the pair were invited by Semibreve Festival in Portugal to refine their collaboration during an artist in residency. Together with analogue filmmaker and “live cinema” artist Pedro Maia, Lewis and Void will present their new audiovisual live show (evolved from the Semibreve residency) at WORM during Conflux festival on Friday 3 June. Ahead of the trio’s performance, as part of the Conflux conference program, writer and music journalist Holly Dicker will moderate an artist talk with Klara Lewis and Nik Void followed by a short presentation of selected works by Pedro Maia.