Voidie tours hyperpop's darkest corners on his debut EP Claustrophobic

By bringing together calling cards from different genres, he creates his own space to reflect and say what he needs to, making for an EP that’s not only lyrically confessional, but sonically too.

There’s a sense of conscious variance across Claustrophobic, as if Voidie (the artistic alias of Lloyd Garret) is trying on sounds for size. As his debut release, it’s intriguing and refreshing to hear such conscious exploration, and rather than necessarily finding what fits, we’re left feeling that Voidie isn’t done experimenting yet. “Pushing Daisies” packs punches of straightforward club-pop synths weaving around darker beats and muffled, reverberating vocals, bringing together the light and the gloom from either end of Voidie’s sound. On the other hand, though, it’s directly followed by the flickering minimalism of “c.w.u.c”, with a speedier flow and a glinting focus on the vocals and lyrics, Voidie’s heart on his sleeve.

Voidie puts a lot of trust in the listener, because he strips it back when he’s being most honest and lets you hear with no distortion. EP closer “Skincrawler”’s first verse is strikingly still compared to the way the rest of Claustrophobic has been built up, taking the walls down for a moment, with just a twinkling acoustic guitar for armour. It’s not for long, though, as the autotune textures re-enter to wrap up Voidie’s melancholic musings.

The musical craft across the whole EP, be that the autotune or the slick synths or flickering beats - makes for grooves that are so catchy they’re at odds with the subject matter within. But this is what sets Voidie up for what comes next - he’s given us a hint, he’s given us a little of himself, and he’s started to delve into some musical routes. But Claustrophobic isn’t Voidie at an endpoint, it’s a cross-section of what he’s capable of and ready to build on.