Written by Emma Edwards.
Photo by Joy Gansh.
Theo Bleak’s music feels uncomfortably close. Yesterday, the Glasgow-based artist, also known as Katie Lynch, has released a new EP, titled ‘Bargaining’, which continues that trend.
‘Bargaining’ lives firmly in the middle stage of grief, where nothing is resolved and everything is negotiated internally. Built on soft, minimalist production and deeply intimate writing, ‘Bargaining’ lets Lynch’s cashmere soft voice sit unprotected in the mix. The songs are unpolished by design, inspired in part by diaries kept by her late great uncle John; they feel recovered rather than released. Haunted, fragmentary and heavy with mental isolation, the EP captures loss as something inward and looping.
“I said I love you too many times to men,” Lynch’s mesmeric voice confesses on the opening track. A lone guitar hovers beneath her voice, faint sounds of traffic passing can be heard in the background, allowing the line to land with uncomfortable clarity. Unfinished and raw, it closes with a confession: despite the sadness, she’d do it again. This stark honesty defines the record. Narratives appear in pieces: diary entries, half memories, self interrogations. Nothing is tied up neatly and it begins with ending.
Lead single ‘Megan in New York’ is one of the EP’s brighter sonic moments, though the record sits in emotional low light throughout. It traces a destructive relationship driven by intensity and a lack of reason. Lynch has described it as rooted in a period of self implosion, beginning in New York City. You can hear the collapse in the way the song spirals in its own regret; gothic guitar and sampled drums make a calm soundscape which is juxtaposed with spiteful lyrics: “You’re a righteous fuck who does just what they wanna do”.
The shorter interludes ‘(17)’ and ‘(14)’ are among the EP’s most effective moments. They arrive briefly, trembling, then leave before overexplaining themselves. Elsewhere, ‘Finest Work’ lets a delicate beat emerge beneath the yearning lyrics: “Every time I go to sleep I look for you in my dreams.” ‘So Glad I Waited’ distils emotional imbalance into one cutting observation: “I don’t make myself lonely but you do.”
As the record unfolds, themes of transit, distance and memory recur. Standing too close to a platform’s edge. Empty corridors. A bench in Queen’s Park. In ‘NJ Transit’, a train horn opens the track before soft strumming, light piano and layered vocals take over. The sound of passing trains later reappears, subtly matching the pitch of Lynch’s voice. In ‘Leave Me Alone’, she is almost swallowed by birdsong, falling piano notes and softly stacked harmonies. Her voice is often buried or deliberately obscured, as if clarity itself would be dishonest. Even when the arrangements grow more layered, the questions hang in the air.
“Let me go,” Lynch commands near the end on ‘My Name Lives In Your Throat’, an upbeat ukulele track that slowly gathers momentum. Closer ‘To, Hell (Redux)’ spirals inward, repeating the phrase “to hell” before echoing a line from ‘Finest Work’: “Waste my finest work in a crowded bar/ On a Queen’s Park bench/ In your fucked up car.” The EP folds back on itself, returning to places and phrases already exhausted. Nothing is answered, only repeated. It ends where it’s been circling all along, unresolved to the very last moment.
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