So named for her hometown’s historic misfortune, ‘Flood City Trax’ is Nondi_’s first physical release under this moniker after years of digital editions under other aliases on her digital label HRR. Previously specialising in “nightcore”, her adoption of the Nondi_ mantle signifies a switch to loosely footwork-related styles of production that effectively treat the club as an imaginary fantasy playground, as her geographic isolation means Nondi_ has only experienced the styles she references via the Internet.

The dozen cuts of ‘Flood City Trax’ are perhaps understandably shy of a physical heft one might expect from club music, but more than make up for that lack with a psychedelic sensuousness and gripping spirit that transcends dance music in a similar way to how ‘90s electronica producers abstracted Detroit techno’s sci-fi inspirations, and Chicago house’s jazzy qualities, to headier purposes far from the source, and is also symptomatic of how the Internet has enabled and factored the cyberpunk potential of decentralised music scenes, from underground noise to vaporwave.

Call it impressionist footwork, Afropunk ambient, or Internet Music – whatever gives best handle on the steez – Nondi_’s music is undoubtedly special. In succinct bursts of textured soft synths and fleet-footed rhythm she really captures the imagination as the album unfurls from the wrong-end-of-a-telescope, shoegazing perspective on footwork in ‘FCD (Floaty Cloud Dream)’, to the crackling music box melodies of ‘Harmoyear’, via what sounds like Teresa Winter doing singeli on ‘Orchid Juke’, or coruscating reflections of Vladislav Delay’s recent mode on ’Sun_Juke’, thru µ-Ziqian charms of ‘Nondi Shadow’ and the RDJ-era strings of ‘Long Ago’, while coming closest to the femme aggression of Jlin or Jana Rush on ’01-25-2022’, and with traces of Carl Craig & Derrick May’s kaotic harmonies via Jamal Moss in ‘Dusty’.