Named after her talented accordion-playing grandfather, Deryk is the moody electronic pop solo project of London-born, Auckland-based songwriter Madeline Bradley. She started to use the Deryk name around 2015, after which point she enlisted the production techniques of Justyn Pilbrow to achieve the sounds that she heard in her head. By late 2020, Universal New Zealand had issued her first EP, WOMb, a collection of calm but woozy tracks not too far removed from the output of Lorde or James Blake. Born in 1996, Bradley spent the early part of her life in and around London, and other parts of Southern England, soon becoming diagnosed with ADHD. At age eight, she moved with her family to a coastal suburb of Napier named Taradale. As Bradley grew, she attended Napier Girls' school and her enthusiasm for writing short fiction led her to set these stories to music. There was a depth of feeling to her compositions, evidence of time spent listening to soul singers of the '70s. After submitting songs to various competitions, her track "That Feeling" was released -- under her birth name -- on a 2013 Lion Foundation compilation. Bradley spent the next year studying design in Wellington, New Zealand, before she realized that she wanted music to be her primary focus. A move to Auckland followed, and on arrival she threw herself into learning about music production, eventually signing up to attend the city's branch of SAE. After her cover of Spooky Black's 2014 track "Without You" brought her work modest online attention, she was approached by Simon Banks, the former manager of KT Tunstall, with an offer to look after her affairs. Bradley accepted, but she spent the next several years working with various co-writers and producers without quite finding her sound. An introduction to Pilbrow -- recently returned from L.A. -- brought more fruitful results, and they spent from May 2019 to the following January recording material that would comprise her debut EP. Preceded by lead track and debut single "Call You Out" in July 2020, WOMb arrived that October. ~ James Wilkinson